Sideswipe: January 5: Guide to the cults

Photo / Supplied

Segregation puzzle
"In 1960 I attended an intermediate in Dunedin," writes a reader. "I realise now that the headmaster must have had a bad experience during WWII, but at the time his rules were perplexing. At each break time he rang the bell and when all the teachers signalled to him that we were all standing to attention he rang a second bell.

At this point we marched to the front of the classroom. Then he rang a third bell and the girls marched into the corridor and stood next to the wall. Then the boys marched over and stood next to the white line. Then at the signal of a further bell we marched to the boys' playground. After the boys had left, the girls marched to their playground.

The headmaster hopped around between the two playgrounds and any boy entering no boys' land was strapped severely. As boys didn't reach puberty until around 15 in those days and there was strict censorship on any sexual information I could not understand why boys and girls needed to be kept separate."

Spotted in an Aotea Square carpark lift. Photo / Supplied

What untruth did you believe for the longest time?
1. Mike was born on Labour Day. "Of course every year there was a long weekend around my birthday and I'm ashamed to say I was 12 years old before I finally had the realisation that Labour Day wasn't about making babies at all!"

2. "Before television and all the entertainment available now, we used to listen to song requests on the radio. My dad told me that if I wanted to request a song I had to write a note and put it under the radio. He said that the announcer would just reach out and get it when he was ready. Still waiting to hear it!"

3. "When winter was coming my grandparents would look out the window towards my great-uncle's house next door and say, 'Jack Frost is going to nip your nose!' ... I thought Jack Frost was my Great-Uncle Steve, so I was afraid to go near him for many years!"