LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 December 1943, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Payment of Pensions. On account of the year-end holidays old-age pensions will be paid out at the Social Security Office, Masterton on and after December 21, instead of at the end of the month. Other benefits and pensions, including family benefits, war veterans’ allowances, and and universal pensions, will be paid on and after December 22.

Kennel Club Parade. The Wairarapa Kennel Club will hold a ribbon parade at 2 p.m. sharp in the Masterton Park on Saturday. The judge of all breeds will be Mr C. Pedersen. Entries will close on Friday but the secretary will be at the Park at 1.30 p.m. on Saturday to take late entries. An added attraction at this parade will be a pets’ class to be judged by the president of the club, Mr H. Mackenzie Douglas. A prize will be awarded for the most attractive pet and also one for the cleverest pet. Entries will be taken at the Park or competitors can ring telephone 2272.

Child Saved from Drowning. The prompt action of a young woman, Mrs R. F. Edmonds, Wanganui, resulted in a three-year-old boy being saved from drowning in the Wanganui River. The boy was Colin Wright 1 . In company with two other children of about the same age, the boy was playing on a small jetty on the riverbank near Plymouth Street when he fell into the river. Mrs Edmonds,, who was walking past the spot with her children, one of them in a pram, heard the cries from the jetty and immediately rushed down a steep pathway, and plunged into the water fully dressed to rescue the boy, who was being carried away by the tide. Mrs Edmonds immediately applied artificial respiration and by the time members of the staff of Braemar Private Hospital arrived on the scene in response to a call, the boy had resumed breathing. He was taken to hospital and after receiving medical attention was later able to go home.

Parcels and Papers for Troops. Complaints of delay in the delivery of parcels and newspapers addressed to members of New Zealand units serving in the forward areas in the Pacific were replied to yesterday by the Post-master-General, Mr Webb. He said that every effort was being made by the post office and the Army postal officers in the forward areas and at other points to deliver mails at the earliest possible moment. “Several factors might contribute to delays in delivery,” said Mr Webb. “For example, after posting, newspapers and parcels may, for shipping reasons, be held' in New Zealand for short periods before dispatch. After leaving New Zealand, ships sometimes have to be diverted or delayed at ports of call owing to service conditions or for reasons of security. On arrival of the vessels in the forward areas, all mails have to be unloaded in the open roadstead into barges and landed on the beach, whence they are transported to safe storage under tarpaulin covers. To reach the units in the more forward areas mails are reloaded on barges or other small ships, but the loads that may be carried by these vessels are limited, and naturally preference must be given to munitions, war equipment, and food. Mail, however, is given a high priority, and so far no undue delay has taken place.”