Sideswipe: December 16: Pinny find at the op shop

Driven to success

A reader writes: "In the mid 60s when I was 12, my parents had a farm on Highway 16 in Whenuapai. We grew veges and had 5 acres of strawberries. Our property was bounded by a dirt road on one side and a 200 metre main road frontage.

"I was already driving our old Massey Ferguson at 10 and would regularly drive the tractor with its load of strawberries up the dirt road out onto the main highway and up to the front of the property where we had a roadside shop. It was always fun to take some of the pickers' kids, especially the girls on the trailer to show off!

"One day coming out of the dirt road on to the main road, a traffic police car went by and instantly turned around seeing this small lad driving a tractor and trailer with about six kids on the back. By that time, I was well inside our property. He came and gave my parents a good telling off.

"However, three years later, two days after my 15th birthday my dad takes me up to the local MOT office in Kumeū to sit my driving licence test and the same officer who saw me three years previously about the tractor is the examiner. I thought I was in for a tough time, but I passed. Phew. Another three years later on my 18th birthday, same again up to Kumeū and the same MOT officer is still there for my truck licence (HT). Again, I passed.

My normal licence and my HT licence have bought pleasure and income over the years since then. When times have been tough financially in my business, I have always been able to get a job driving trucks and my normal licence has enabled me to obtain a full race and rally licence and participate in motorsport successfully at an amateur level over the last 50 years.

"My normal and race licences have also enabled me to work with others as an Advanced Race Driver Trainer as well as training drivers for the AOS (Armed Offenders Squad), £ (Strategic Tactical Group), SIS (Security Intelligence Service) and DPS (Diplomatic Protection Squad)."

And this is why typography matters...

Plant guy clears thing up

Tom Johnson of Huapai wants to settle the issue of Grey Lynn's disappearing berm iris: "As a nurseryman of over 60 years, the plants causing all this fuss are in fact Dietes grandiflora of the iris family. The flowers do indeed last only a day or two before dropping and have the habit of flowering spectacularly for a day and then resting before bursting forth again, repeating this process over a long period from spring to autumn."