‘Emergency’ Calls

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30955, 11 January 1966, Page 1

‘Emergency’ Calls

The Automobile Association (Canterbury) has an after-hours emergency service to help stranded motorists; but not all the calls that come in can be described as dealing with breakdowns. “At 12.15 a.m. last Thursday a woman telephoned, and spent some time, in a very irate way, telling the emergency officer all about the terrors of Arthur’s Pass,” said the association’s general manager (Mr E. S. Palliser), yesterday. “We get many afterhours inquiries about the weather, but we can’t oblige. One night recently, the after-hours service was asked to name the bay at Picton where

friends of the inquirer were staying. We were asked if we knew of a Mr So and So who catered for bed and breakfast.” The association’s chief service officer (Mr B. A. Anderson) said that the best call in this category over the holidays came from a man who said he was telephoning from his home in Christchurch. “He said he had hitchhiked from Sumner in his bathing shorts because he was locked out of his car at Sumner. All the family’s clothes were in the locked car, and he had returned home to get spare keys. All he wanted us to do was pick him up and run him back to Sumner."