Reporter's Diary

Press, 19 April 1979, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Southern beehive CHRISTCHURCH’S answer to the new Parliamentary Beehive in Wellington will be set up in the Horticultural Hall at the end of this month when an entire hive of bees will be set loose among the flowers on display at the Horticultural Society’s chrysanthemum show. With all those prize blooms to choose from, it should be quite the bees knees for the occupants of the hive. They are all pan of a display by the Christchurch Bee Club, and honey will be on sale. The chrysanthemum show will be held from April 28 to 30 — a new departure for the society, as the show will be held during a week-end, instead of the usual Wednesday and Thursday show dates. Greensleeves ANOTHER novelty on display at the Horticultural Society’s show at the end of the month will be a green chrysanthemum called Greensleeves. According to the secretary/treasurer of the society (Mr J. C. Fraser) the green chrysanthemum has never been seen in New Zealand

before. It has been imported by Mr L. Clark, who will grow them in Christchurch, Green chrysanthemums are particularly useful in decorative flower arrangements. Confusing RESIDENTS of Castletown Street, North New Brighton, could be excused for being confused about the renaming of their street. Last week, an advertisement in “The Press” said that the northern end of Castletown Street was to be called Thurso Place, the middle part was to be called Castletown Place, and the southern part was to be called Thurso Place. However, this was not the case at all. On Monday, another advertisement appeared saying that the northern end of Castletown Street was to be called Castletown Place, the middle part was to be renamed Thurso Place, and the southern part was to be called Thurso Place, the This was the correct version, but unfortunately no mention was made of the earlier incorrect version. So confusion abounded. However, the residents of the renamed street, if they are able to work out the complicated reasoning of

the changes, can rest assured that Monday’s version was the right one. Public notices THE WHOLE of Greymouth got to know about the birth of its newest inhabitant on April 17. Mrs Jill Todd, wife of the Greymouth manager of Haywrights, Ltd. gave birth to a son, Nigel Francis, on that day. Mr Todd’s obviously delighted staff told passers-by all about it — by putting big posters in the store’s windows on the main corner of Greymouth’s business area. One said: ‘To Jill and Rex Todd — a toddler.” Another said: “Although the staff want a day off to celebrate, the arrival of Nigel, his father says ‘No.’ Nigel weighed in at 81b 6oz on April 17. Mother Jill well, father recovering.” In a jam AFTER chasing his young brother down an alleyway in Hokitika on Monday, a boy, aged 12, found himself stuck between two walls. He could go neither forwards nor backwards and was jammed there for two hours until the Hokitika Fire Brigade was able to free him by knocking a hole in one of the brick walls that had been .wedging him in. Apparently, his younger brother nego-

tiated the gap between tha two buildings in Tancred Street, but tl)e elder boy was a little too big to get through. He was freed, shaken but unhurt. Status quo UNLIKE its Auckland counterpart, the elite King’s College for boys, Christ’s College in Christchurch has no plan to accept any girls as fulltime pupils and boarders in the sixth and seventh forms. King’s College, at Otahuhu, has agreed to accept 15 girls into the senior academic level next year as “a stimulus to a broader teaching base” and “to enable boys and girls to meet and to build respect for each other.” But the headmaster of Christ’s College (Mr A. M. Brough) said yesterday that the college had no plan for such a departure. “We already have reciprocal arrangements with St Margaret’s College and Rangi Ruru Girls’ School for exchanges for certain subjects,” he said. “At present, we have several girls here for Latin, and in the past they have come here for accounting, history of art, and physics. Two of our senior pupils go to Rangi Ruru for examination music classes.” Mr Brough said that King’s College was in an entirely different position. It was situated in an

area of Auckland where there was no comparable private girls’ school, and the majority of pupils of the college were from areas some distance from Otahuhu, where the school is situated. Write-offs SUNNYSIDE Hospital was the subject of a daring theft last year that is still a mystery. A total of 736 pairs of" panty-hose were stolen from the hospital, never to be seen again. Police inquiries into the vanished nylons have proved fruitless. At a finance committee meeting yesterday, the North Canterbury Hospital Board decided to write off the missing panty-hose, which were valued at $552.Wishful thinking? A CHRISTCHURCH family had been discussing an item in the “Diary” last week about the setting up of an organisation to help would-be dog owners find the right sort of dog. The parents were adamant. They emphatically did not want to have a dog in the house. But their small son persisted. He badly wanted his own puppy. Most of all, he told his mother and father. “I want a Great Dame.” His father’s eyes, we hear, sparkled. —Felicity Price