Reporter’s diary

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Nest WHEN a Kaikoura bach owner went to the bottom of his garden recently, he did not find fairies. He found bumblebees, one of which gave him a greeting he could have done without. The man, from Christchurch, had neglected his garden for a while, and was getting stuck in to the clean-up job. He was digging out the sweetcorn stalks from last year when he noticed bees buzzing about. Some of them were on the blue flowers of chicory plants. They flew from there into the ground, round the roots of a corn stalk. When he pulled up the stalk, out with it came a well established nest of bees and grubs. Pieces of the stalk had been used to make the nest, and a couple of young bees were still there. As he continued the clean-up, the biggest bumblebee he had ever seen — he thinks it might have been the queen — flew up and stung him in the back of the neck. He says he would much rather have had a fairy kiss. The nest was carefully collected and placed in a jar. The man knows a primary schoolteacher who may want to use it for classroom study. McManus roar WHEN "Miss Canterbury,” Lynda McManus, won the j’Miss New Zealand” contest on Saturday evening, -U big roar went lip from ®e patrons of the

McManus Hotel, in Westport. Lynda McManus is a hometown girl, and the normal Saturday / pub crowd was swelled by participants and supporters in that day’s Buller Gorge marathon. Lynda’s grandfather used to be the hotel’s publican. Wants to hear WINIFRED Goodrum, an elderly resident of Cambridge, England, would like to hear from the family of a young Christchurch man whom she married in World War 11. He was Ivor Morrison Brown, who lived at 170 Hastings Street before the war and was a Spitfire pilot in the Royal Air Force. He was shot down and killed six months after he married Mrs Goodrum, who is now bed-ridden. He was buried at Calais. His broker,

Stewart Brown, was also in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and was buried at Salisbury in Rhodesia. A friend of Mrs Goodrum, a visitor from British Columbia, has been in Christchurch, and has made inquiries on her behalf. She can be reached through us. Peace picnic ALLAN White and Peter Salter, the two Westland men who rode their horses to Wellington last year to demonstrate for peace, were on the same horses when they arrived at a West Coast peace picnic at Lake Mahinapua on Waitangi Day. They are trying to organise a special peace train, from Dunedin to Wellington, in March to boost support for New Zealand’s antinuclear stand, and as a further protest against

French testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific. The picnic, organised by the Hokitika Peace Group and the West Coast Peace Activists to help mark the United Nations International Year of Peace, included a concert and the painting of a long peace banner by children. Peter Hooper, the Paroa writer, read some of his war poems. Soccer clean-up A STRETCH of the Avon River was cleaned yesterday by St Albans-Shirley Soccer Club members getting ready to play river soccer at midday on Tuesday. The watery game is a traditional Shrove Tuesday event in England, and the club will be raising funds for its junior members. The match will be played between the Victoria Street and Armagh Street bridges. A team from 3ZB will play a. celebrity side including Bobby Almond, the soccer international, and Alex' Clark, the Labour Mayoral candidate. Lyn Waldegrave will also lend her feet to that side. After the match, a pancake race will be run around Victoria Square. Adults and; children cleaning up the river found the usual bottles and broken glass, but they also dredged up iron bars, bricks, coins, horseshoes, soggy fireworks, a camera film, face makeup, a Visa card,' a wallet, and a well watered whisky tumbler. . Stan Darling