OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 March 1942, Page 4

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

AN OLD SCHOOL WELL (To the Editor.) Sir. —I was very much interested in reading the account of the finding of an old well under the school at Featherston, as I have painful recollections of its being dug. I was attending the school at the time and we were all very interested in the performance. The well diggers were down forty feet and when the man at the bottom came up he lowered the bucket down again, and skid he would give anyone 2s 6d who would go down on the rope. Half a crown was a lot of money in those days, so I took it on. I had instructions to hold on tight, with the result that the rope cut my fingers to the bone and I carry the scars to this day. But what hurt most was that the chemist charged me 2s 6d to dress my hands. That was not all. To add insult to injury, I had to appear before Mr Gurr, our master, to account for my conduct on the day before. There were none of the restrictions on corporal punishment that we hear so much about these days, so he laid it on thick and strong. But he left his marks in another place. — I am. etc., W. SHIRLEY, Carterton, March 12.