Reporter’s diary

Press, 2 March 1982, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Sock sold

THE SUSPENSE is over. Warren Lees’ old cricket sock (with hole) has found a home. After some spirited bidding from' five 'potential buyers at Saturday’s annual Arrowtown antique auction, the sock and hole went to a gentleman from Timaru. Mr R. Procter, a collector of cricket memorabilia, paid the princely sum of $55 for the former New., Zealand wicket-keeper’s sock which saw its last cricket campaign against the West Indies at Carisbrook. The auctioneers, Jayar- Trading Company, Ltd, ripped through 1000 lots during the nine hour auction, a turnover of about $65,000. That makes the Arrowtown event one of New Zealand’s largest auctions. A former. New Zealand cricketer, Bryan Artdrews, of Christchurch, was one of the auctioneers and sold the prize sock exhibit. Changing colours . . .GREYMOUTH’S deputy mayor, Cr Russell King, found at short notice • on Thursday that he. had to welcome the Minister of Lands and Forests (Mr Elworthy) to the town. Cr

King told the Minister that had he been given more time he would have changed the red shirt he was wearing for a blue one. . . . response THE MINISTER responded with a little compliment of his own. Mr Elworthy said he had offered his services as the National Party caucus member with responsibility for keeping an eye on the West Coast. His own electorate, Waitaki, bordered the West Coast on the top of the divide and his portfolios were of particular importance to the Coast. Furthermore, he liked the area. “And I wasn’t sorry to hand over Sydenham,” he ’ said. , “I wasn’t having much response to offers of help there.” Commemorative axe THE CENTENARY of the first attempt on Mount Cook by the Irish clergyman, the Rev. W. S. Green, falls this week. On March 2 and 3, 1882, Green and his two Swiss companions came within a few metres of being the first to climb the mountain. Later in the year, this centenary is to be marked in an unusual fashion. Green’s ice-axe is being sent out to

New Zealand by some of his descendants and will be carried by park rangers or alpine guides to the summit which it so nearly reached in Green’s own hands 100 years ago. The axe will not arrive in time to complete its ascent of Mount Cook a century to the very day it was last on the mountain. It should reach New Zealand in time to make the top next spring — still well within the centennial year. Green died in 1919. Females supreme THE LATEST batch of figures from the 1981 census has some interesting features. There are for instance, 21,120 more females than males in New Zealand. The ratio is more in favour of the males in the North Island where there is a surplus of 18,420 females compared with the 2500 or so in the South Island. In the section on marital status and de facto relationships of resi- . dents over. the age of 15, there is. a set of statistics which is quite bemusing. Married women outnumber .married men by 1290. Even worse, there are 8430 more divorced women and an amazing 94,830 more

widowed women than men. An obvious conclusion is that wives outlive their husbands fairly frequently. Possibly the 24,000 or so men who did not specify their marital status could account. Anyway, the meh redress the balance when it comes to de facto relationships; according to the census, 400 more men than women admit to being in a de facto relationship. Mermaid A MERMAID, not your normal sea-going type, is sought by the Canterbury Children’s Theatre. The theatre would really like a statue of the famous sculpture which stands in the harbour at Copenhagen to commemorate Hans Christian Andersen. Tourists are fond of bringing home such pieces after overseas trips and the theatre would like to borrow one for the window display for the musical, “Hans Christian Andersen.” The production is to commemorate the theatre’s thirtieth anniversary and will be staged at the James Hay Theatre during the May school holidays. Anyone with a mermaid statue reclining about the place can telephone Mrs Crossen .at 35-102. ' ,