LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 November 1941, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Safe Robbed. An electric drill operated from a light point was used by burglars to break open a safe in the premises of the City Dye Works at Dunedin on Friday night. A considerable sum of money and cheques were taken. Shortage of Shearers. It is reported that there is a shortage of labour for shearing, etc., in the Wairarapa. Any farmer who is having difficulty in securing labour is advised to communicate with the secretary of the Wairarapa Farmers’ Union. Soldiers Want Golf Clubs. “I have been asked by keen golfers here whether the board would approach the New Zealand Golf Council for a supply of second-hand clubs and balls.” states Lieutenant-Colonel F. Waite, overseas commissioner for the National Patriotic Fund Board, in a recent report to the board from the Middle East. “There is an acute shortage of such material in Egypt, and, although the local clubs are most generous in lending their equipment, our men would like some equipment of their own. It is impossible to buy it here.”

Mistaken Identity. The British sense of humour shines up in unexpected places. No one would expect to get much fun and laughter out of an air warden’s job in London but apparently it can be done, according to a letter from an air warden to a friend in Christchurch. “We get many laughs,” he writes. “Wardens in the next post saw some parachutes descending and immediately gave chase. The ‘over fifties’ soon gave it up; but two younger men reached the point of landing just before the parachutes made contact —and saw they had been running towards two parachute mines, the most devastating device yet dropped from aeroplanes; and they fell flat just before the explosion. Although all buildings over a wide area disintegrated, by some chance the wardens were only shaken. They had to buy beer .for the rest of the post.”

Manawatu Gorge Blocked. Advice has been received by the Wairarapa Automobile Association that the Manawatu Gorge Road is blocked, presumably by a slip. The Pahiatua track is open, and may be used as an alternative route.

Crops in Strange Places. Trees planted by Samual Pepys on the Grafton estate in West Suffolk have been unrooted to make way for crops of oats, rye, and linseed, states “The Times,” London. In London itself crops were appearing in strange places. On the site of the crater made by the first bomb which fell on the West End a year ago tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and marrows were ripening. Reserved for Traitors. Each night in Prague certain lamp posts are mysteriously labelled “Reserved” —meaning for traitors and their Gestapo friends who will be hanged there when the day of reckoning comes. German films purporting to record victories against the Russians were exposed as having been concocted in the Barrandov studios in Bohemia and in Babelsberg near Berlin, and had to be withdrawn. Prisoner of War Airmail Forms. New letter airmail forms for prisoners of war are now available at all post offices. The new form is a light paper slip in three folds, with directions printed in air force blue. By the use of these forms it will be possible to forward letters all the way to Lisbon by air for Is 6d. The new letter forms—they are not cards—have no adhesive. There is simply a tag, part of the first sheet, which fits into an opening in the third sheet, making the examination of the letter forms a much simpler and quicker task for the censors. All three folds are lined for writing'and there is space enough for a fairly long letter. The letters must be written clearly, and the contents must be in accordance with the regulations. At present a fair proportion of letters have either to be sent back to the writer or censored, but gradually, as people get to know the regulations, the work of the censors is becoming less onerous, though still heavy.