More on the art of obtaining retail rewards (C8) now, with John Dawson of North Parramatta: “In the early ’60s my boss found a 2000-year supply of carbon paper in the stationery cabinet. The supplier used to give a pair of stockings with each box ordered by the stenographer.”
“Simon Dixon (C8) has enthralled us with a token multi-generation breakfast saga,” gushes Warren Finnan of West Ryde. “We eagerly wait for the next episode in this exciting cereal!”
“Thank you to all those Good Samaritans who came to help my husband when he tripped on uneven tiling on the footpath outside 1 York Street last week,” writes Alison Stewart of Waitara, “To the very patient lady who tried endlessly to contact triple zero but was told there was up to a two-hour wait! Then to the tattooed, dark-wavy-haired delivery cyclist who ran across the street to secure a taxi to drive hubby to Royal North Shore Hospital. Other office workers who passed by also helped. Thank you to all at RNSH, too.”
Like Robert Hosking, Peter Miniutti of Ashbury is a fan of lugging park links: “During early morning winter walks, filled dog-poo bags (C8) in the hoodie pocket is a wonderful way to keep your hand warm.”
Stephen Tait of Rose Bay recalls that a pair of locals, emboldened by the success of obliterating a letterbox (C8) on the way to Woolwich Public School, “dropped a Tom Thumb down the keyhole of a footpath trapdoor. This was a gas pipeline adjacent to the Mobil oil pipeline. The consequent explosion and fireball lifted the manhole cover several metres and singed everything in a five-metre radius. Later, Mrs Randall’s fourth-class lessons were interrupted by two constables making inquiries about a bomb detonation. They only had to look for the fresh winter tan, lack of eyebrows, singed jumper and smell of smoke and gunpowder.”
Andrew Cohen of Glebe also liked to lift the lid: “Poor old Mr Smith. After two tin letterboxes had succumbed to tuppeny bungers, he installed a big, stylish, sandstone receptacle that he believed impregnable, but four tuppenies bound together lifted the massive lid, rotating skywards then smashing to pieces on his Pymble driveway in 1965.”
If bungers were still around, the choko hand grenade would be a luxury, according to Stewart Martin of Mangerton: “Saw chokos for $7.50/kg at Woolies. Pretty expensive ammo, these days.”
Column8@smh.com.au
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