PALMERSTON NORTH

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 49, 10 December 1924, Page 13

PALMERSTON NORTH

(From our own Correspondent.) November 28. Before departing on his journey across the ocean, Father 13owe came along and spent a few days in his old parish. A boy told me on Sunday morning that he heard a lady telling her husband that a. neighbor was supposed to have said hat it is alleged that Father Mac said that it is quite possible that wo may have another bazaar at Easter time next year. That’s what you call ‘breaking it gently. THE ASCENT OF THE CHURCH SPIRE (PART IT.) It’s high time we made our second ascent of the spire. Ready and willing? righto! Mr. Hickey will be our “guide” again; and we’ll go up on the inside this time. We enter by the door at the right hand side of tho front entrance to the church, as before. The Heps to tho choir-gallery are familiar to us now. At the left side of the gallery is the enignc-room, which means that in the dim and distant future we hope to possess a pipe organ, and the engine by which it will be worked will be placed therein. In a corner of the engine-room is the entrance to the: spiral it is made of concrete and a pole runs from bottom to top and we grasp it firmly with our left hands as we climb. Uncanny business eh? turn, turn, will it ever end? It makes one feel like a first cousin to Tennyson’s “Brook’: “For steps may come and steps may go; but I go on for ever.” The steps end alright and we find ourselves in a room .in the centre of the tower directly over the choir. The remainder of our ascent consists in climbing ladders; they are standing quite straight and are built away from the wall. Off you go: the top of this ladder takes us through a square hole in the ceiling into the room above. AA e climb another ladder in here, and so on into each landing until wo reach the top of the spire. Each room is smaller than the preceding one; the first has groups of windows (beneath the niche on the exterior); the others, with the exception of the last one, have louvers. We’re becoming educated in the builders’ “vocabulary” ; thanks to Mr. Hickey! Whatever you do don’t tell him that the louvers lemind you of tho ventilation arrangement in the back of the bathroom or dairy, or he’ll get a. “glint” in his eye. We can’t go any further now except to mount the last ladder and look out the little openings (not louvers this time) at the base of the “spirctbes”; and compared with the view from the summit of the centre cross is poor indeed. There's nothing exciting in this climb,’

and no scenery on the way, except the pretty grain in the wood of which the ladders are made. Although it is a calm day the wind in the spire is strong enough to blow us up the ladders. You can’t hear what I’m saying? neither can I hear you, for the echo is the queerest imaginable. One could grow quite romantic about this climb locked in the spire; ascending and descending the ladders; peering through the louvers; listening for the sound of an opening door. Sounds like an ad. for a picture show. We had better “ring off” now and go back to the earth once more as it must be close on tea-time. The wind is worse coming down; but the spiral is not so bad after all. Wc have finished our journeys as far as the spire is concerned. “Good-night! and many thanks Mr. Hickey; and if we ever build a spire we’ll let yon have the “first climb.” Home we go: I hope the kettle will be boiling.