WAKE UP, CLEVEDON!

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 281, 1 June 1917, Page 2

WAKE UP, CLEVEDON!

[To the Editor] —- Sir,—Like the original Rip, the Clevedon Rip Van Winkle "has cer- i tainly been asleep on the mountains and everything's changed and he'i changed and he can't tell what's his name or who he is." The gnat difference is that "our Rip" has not quite got his eyes open yet; hence he has been seeing very little. All he has really seen is a few blackberries by the Post Office and a lamp that isn't there. Now, let him take a drive along our roads and Til guarantee he can travel on good metal for twenty miles or more without getting even a bump, and this near the middle of winter. At various spots he may notice chains of spawls ready for repairing at very short notice, any inaccuracy in the road level. This does not point to "inactivity" on the Road Board's part and, in fact, visitors to Clevedon are always struck with the well kept roads. Again, let him visit the Show grounds and I would ask him to name a country district within a 100 miles boasting a better grandstand than Clevedon possesses, as a result of the "masterly inactivity" of the A. and P. Society, almost every local member of which, with their wives and families turn out en Arbor Day to beautify their grounds. Again, owing to the inactivity of the residents we have two mails a day, two buses and a motor passenger service to Papakura and a steamer service from Auckland three or four times a week.

To show that sport "moves" here too, we had, before the war, two public tennis and croquet dabs, a football club of three teams, a cricket club, and a basketball club of nearly 30 members. And the 'good-enough-for-my-grandfather' farmers, old and young, joined in the sports and games and the socials and the dances, even from eight and ten miles distance.

Now, since the war most of our young men have gone, the greater percentage as volunteers, and we are proud of the fact that one of them was honoured with the command of a reinforcement draft.

I could still go on further en* lightening Hip, but as It is not likely he knows that Clevedon news appears in this paper I am afraid it would be only a waste of time. Thanking you, sir, I am, etc, A BEAL CLEVEDONTTE. Olevedon, May 25th, 1917.