Camera obscura

The weather is not that flash at the moment but bad weather can produce some interesting – even, some say, ‘‘romantic’’ vistas. This photo is not one of them though there is a peaceful quality about it. This is the excavation for the new Hamilton underground or low level railway. It was, in railway constructors’ terms, a ‘‘cut & cover’’, not true underground. At any rate, this is what happens to long, deep trenches when the weather turns bad and the rains come in. This trench is now a canal. The question we are faced with this week is, what happened to the water? On February 2, 2015, we published a photo of this trench with an excavator in it which will give some perspective.

The butcher’s van featured Friday, July 7, was indeed a Morris, probably an 8cwt van. Thanks to keen history page readers.

Contributed by Perry Rice, Heritage Librarian – Photographs, Hamilton Central Library. If you have any information you would like to pass on or would like to buy an electronic copy of the photo, email perry.rice@hcc.govt.nz quoting HCL_07719 The Lions series concluded the Saturday before last with a good deal of controversy over the performance of French whistleblower Romain Poite. In 1908, in the very first game played during the tour of the AngloWelsh, a uniquely composite side sans Scottish or Irish players, things were not so very different. When Wairarapa-Bush took on the tourists the referee was heavily criticised.

The principal complaint of the New Zealand Truth was ‘‘a good deal of off side play by the Anglo-Welsh’’. The paper noted that ‘‘the glaring manner in which the ball was put into the scrum and the methods of smashing up the scrum and reducing the locals’ chances of obtaining possession of the ball was apparent to all but the referee’’.

As today, the inconsistency of decisions was put down to varying interpretations of the rules of the game: ‘‘laxity in off side play and placing the ball in the scrum goes to show the difference in refereeing in