Cadet Magazine 24 1959

CADET JOTTINGS

HAWKES BAY-EAST COAST DISTRICT

August 1959

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Greetings to the visitors

Welcome to Sunny Hawke’s Bay! Welcome to the Dominion Cadet Competitions, 1959!

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!

For the first time ever the Dominion Cadet Competitions are being held in the Hawke’s Bay and East Coast District and what a boost to our ego is this honour.

We’ve been in a “flat spin” since the day it was announced that this annual event would be in Hastings this year. We’ve been so elated that every man, woman and child within “cooee” has been literally “roped in” to do something towards making the competitions a brighter and better than ever occasion.

In fact, we hope it will be a time you’ll never forget.

From Hastings, Napier, Taradale, and Havelock North have come members of our organisation who have pooled their ideas and their industry to arrange these competitions into a one-day event instead of the normal day-and-a-half to two days.

They have brought you the official booklet (designed to be a souvenir for years to come), and have arranged a sight-seeing tour and films.

The comittee [committee] has organised billets and food and have had had fine lapel badges made for the competitors as well as countless other little details.

They have derived every pleasure from doing these jobs.

Not to be forgotten are the judges and the patients who will gain nearly as much from the competitions as will the competitors. This year some of the patients will be actors from a local dramatical society.

May the best teams and competitors win. Even so, let’s hope that the prizes be well distributed throughout New Zealand.

Yes. We’re excited to have you.

Welcome! Welcome ! Welcome!

NEW TROPHY FOR COMPETITION

A new trophy has been added to the eleven prizes for the various sections of the Dominion Cadet Competitions. It is the “Valiant Plaque” to be awarded to the runners-up of the Bledisloe Cup – the trophy for the champion Ambulance Cadet.

Extra copies of the Cadet Jottings were printed this month to supply visitors to the district with a sample of the Cadet magazine issued in this district.

Some of the Dominion Competitions trophies on display in Westerman’s window in Hastings. This photograph was taken for the Cadet Jottings by Mr. Russell Orr, the official photographer at the competitions.

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Danger in the toolshed

The final chapter in a series entitled “DANGER IN THE TOOLSHED” by Mr. C.L. Napier, Field Manager for Butland Industries Ltd.

The first two parts of my series warned of the dangers of sprays and chemicals. Now, I relate the story told by a medical man of George – the careless gardener.

The case of George –

George takes a pride in his bright and colourful home garden.

One night, about three months ago, he was awakened from his usually solid sleep by a cramping pain in his abdomen. It was not severe enough to trouble him for long and soon disappeared. Maybe the strain from digging George thought, or maybe just something he’d eaten. The cramping came again on following nights a little worse, and lasting longer.

Within a few weeks he began to notice other symptoms. In the middle of raking a lawn, a wave of dizziness would turn his knees to water; he would stagger and his eyes would blurr.

Sometimes he would find himself panting and frighteningly short of breath at the least exertion, and his heart would pound hard and fast in his chest.

Six weeks after that first warning cramp, George saw his doctor, and was sent to a nearby hospital where the obvious tests were made.

The abdomen was not tender to touch; there was no enlargement of the liver. The doctor thought he detected a peptic ulcer, but this was ruled out in an examination of X-ray film.

There was one thing definitely wrong with George, however; a blood count showed he suffered from a fairly severe anaemia, with his red blood cells showing the typical bluish-black dots that marked them as newly manufactured – as though to supply a recent loss.

His trouble was diagnosed tentatively as anaemia due to some sort of liver disease. He was given whole blood transfusions and sent home, but he became worse instead of better; the abdominal pains grew sharper.

Within three weeks he was back in hospital, with extreme

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tenderness in the abdomen and the doctor thought he detected what appeared to show an obstruction in the bowel, a finding that at least partially fitted in with the laboratory evidence.

The doctor ordered surgical exploration, but at the last minute he wavered and sought the help of an expert on internal complaints.

The expert, trained beyond most general practicioners [practitioners] in the art of spotting medical clues and deducing cause from effect, read George’s medical history, questioned, probed, and searched.

The gardener’s key symptoms of abdominal pain and the anaemia with the blue-black dots on the red blood cells pointed strongly, in the specialist’s mind, to just one condition: lead poisoning.

He sought confirmation in a spot where ordinarily only a dentist might have looked: in George’s mouth. And there it was – a tell-tale “lead line” along the base of the teeth, a blue-black discolouration of the gums, typical of lead poisoning, one of the body’s depositories of excess lead.

There seemed no trouble in deciding where a gardener would acquire lead poisoning: many insects sprays are heavy with lead arsenate and the lead content can enter the human body through the mouth or pores. But the specialist was somewhat bewildered when he found the sprays George used at his work as a gardener at a golf club contained no lead at all.

Under further questioning, however, George admitted that he used lead arsenate sprays in his own garden, and that with the years he had grown careless, often spilling it on his hands and forgetting to wash them before eating or smoking.

George was placed on medicine and a diet designed to help his body rid itself of the excess lead. Today he is again healthy and happy. He uses non-lead sprays at work and at home.

SOCIAL AND DANCE AT NAPIER

Napier Cadets organised a dance in the Community Hall, Napier, on Saturday 15th August. It was well attended by Cadets from Napier, Havelock North and Hastings. Music was provided by a local pianist, and like the old saying: “A good time was had by all.”

Pictured above are Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Meachem, from Wellington, New Zealand, at the Parade of the St. John Ambulance Brigade at Hyde Park, London. Mr. Meachem is Priory Secretary for New Zealand

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SETTING UP A PRECEDENT?

It seems that the Hawke’s Bay-East Coast district is making a little characteristic of its own when it comes to Dominion Competition time.

The Ambulance Cadet for the Bledisloe Cup has in the past few years been from Hastings (except for last year when Stuart Barclay represented us. He was then a Waipukurau Cadet but has since been transferred to Hastings.)

At the same time, the representative for the Canterbury Shield seems to come from Taradale in the majority of cases.

It has happened again this year.

Sergeant Mark Morgan, Hastings, who has had experience in several North Island competitions will be this year’s Bledisloe Cup representative.

Colleen Trower, Taradale, will be our candidate for the Canterbury Centennial Shield.

Incidentally, only twice has a National trophy been won by Hawke’s Bay Cadets. Both times it was the Canterbury Shield and both times it was won by Taradale girls. Firstly, Joyce Cavell who later went as a St. John member representing New Zealand at the Queen’s Coronation. The other winner was Phillipa [Phillida] Holderness, a Taradale girl now nursing at Hastings. She won the trophy a few years ago at Christchurch.

AMBULANCE IMPROVISATION

Two of the Hastings St. John Ambulances were on duty at the races and a third was out on call one Saturday – when another call came in.

The only vehicle at hand was a small panel van driven by Commissioner H. Barden, so he, District Officer H.E. Taylor and Mr. A. Ericksen (Hastings Association) took one of the practice stretchers, blankets, bandages, etc., and made haste to the scene of the accident.

The patient, a lad who’d fallen from a tree, made it to hospital all right – with the end of his stretcher poking out the back of the van.

Hastings Divisions’ Annual Inspection

The annual inspection of Hastings divisions was held in the headquarters, Southland Road, on Monday 24th. Present were the four Hastings divisions, Commissioner H. Barden, District Staff Officers, the Mayor of Hastings, and others.

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LEARNING BY EXPERIENCE

We heard of a Cadet who had a serious accident recently. He crawled to his home, where his mother a trained nurse, did much for him before the ambulance arrived. But, not being satisfied that he had hurt himself in a fall from a tree, he had to further the operation by diagnosing his own injuries.

CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CADETS

Off to Parade

I clean my buttons shining bright,
to St. John I go on Wednesday night.
We do our best to keep the pride,
our methods are the best yet tried.
– P.G.H., Havelock North.

I am a St. John Cadet

I am a St John Cadet
each Thursday night. I do get
off to St. John Brigade.
There to have our parade.
After roll call say we
The Cadet Code of Chivalry.
– J. Turner, Hastings.

Uncle (to his nephews): Well, boys. How are you getting on at school?
Ted: I’m first in history.
Jim: I’m first in spelling.
Leonard: And I’m first out on the street when its time to go home.
– C. Dale, Hastings.

All correspondence, including articles, photographs or advertisements, should be addressed to the editor:
J.E. Morgan, 511 E. Queen Street, Hastings.
or C/- Box 180, Hastings.