RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31109, 12 July 1966, Page 28

RANDOM REMINDER

LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR

This is not Friday, nor is it the thirteenth but the principal in the piece had such a tale of woe to

tell that it simply wasn't possible to wait for what would look like a more appropriate occasion. So, straight on to the gory details.

He is a teenager and before we go any further, we disown him: he is not one of ours. This disclaimer had to be made, because the whole unhappy sequence began with his decision to buy a packet of cigarettes to mark his birthday, and to hand round a few of them to those with whom he worked. He duly did this, and after lighting the cigarettes of two others, used the same match to

light his own. A sort of Ancient Mariner in the place told him he was courting misfortune. There was general laughter.

The teenager had been nominated as a hooker for the Canterbury Rugby team in his particular grade. That same afternoon, he went off to football, and he broke a collar-

bone. He was away from work for some weeks, and discovered that his employers had decided they could do without him for even longer, such as for ever. He then found himself a temporary job, and in the belief that it would be even more temporary if he failed in any of his various duties, he tried to catch the mail with the office correspondence (given to him rather too

late in the day. He ran at full speed down a city street, was inadvertently ankle-tapped by a cyclist, and broke an elbow.

So it was hospital again, but in the fullness of time he mended and became whole again. The day before he was to be discharged, some friends and members of the nursing staff gathered to make sure they had not missed any of the fruit or chocolates. And the poor young man lit another cigarette, and again it was the third on a match. There was consternation among the others, but the youngster himself reckoned he had had all his bad luck. He was to leave hospital at 11 a.m. But at that very hour, they were wheeling him in for his appendicitis operation.