WATER! WATER!

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 08, Issue 92, 24 July 1945, Page 5

WATER! WATER!

MONDAY'S DOLEFUL CRY

BUSINESS FOLK IN QUANDARY

"If the people have no water, why don't they drink lemonade"—(Misquoted from Marie Antoinette's famous speech preceding the: French Revolution). Yesterday was indeed a mournful one for the business folk in Whai;atane for the town was as dry of water as Methusalall's bones. The whole trouble dated back to the water main in the centre oi the town (by the cenotaph) which is undergoing repairs. Naturally the water had to be turned off, and business people suddenly realised how much they depended on Adam's Ale. Everywhere one looked yesterday around morning tea time one was greeted with parched tongues hanging and wagging in the breeze for the familiar cup of tea which had suddenly become precious as gold, and which was, to many, unobtainable. Restaurants suddenly found themselves in even more of a hole than the men fixing the pipe (and they Avere, most of the time, invisible from the surface). More and more people came in to eat :> more and more dishes were used, and more and more dirty platters piled in till they reached mountainous propor,-" tions beside a waterless sink. The paradoxical side of the. whole thing was that rain was falling in buckets outside; thus people cursed the water outside and v the lack of it inside. Fortunately the repairs were effected in the afternoon, and the service was restored in t'ime for tea. We trust no housewife left the bath,, room tap on waiting for it to fulfill its normal function and then 9 went out visiting and forgot about it!