This Week
22 TUESDAY 16 November 2010
Grab a deal at SouthTec
SouthTec is easily located in the Farmers Arcade, just off Trafalgar Street
SouthTec is the only Apple Authorised Service Provider in the top of the south. They supply and service all Apple computers, iPods and Accessories. S o u t hTe c ’s k n ow l e d g a b l e sales people can advise you with solutions to your computing problems, making the switch from PC or
even how to get more out of your current Mac. Teaching or tertiary Study? Educational discounts are available (conditions apply). Need to learn more about your Mac? Ask about the one to one tutorials. SouthTec is located just off Trafalgar Street, in the farmers arcade.
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Buy any Mac with an Applecare service & support plan and get 12 Months Interest FREE* on your purchase**
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Direct access to Apple experts. Global repair coverage. Apple hardware and accessory coverage. Software support including: - Using Mac OS X – Quick how-to questions about iLife and iWork – Connecting to printers and airport networks.
or Buy any Mac with an Applecare and choose from a FREE Microsoft Office 2011 Student edition or Booq Bag*
or Office for Mac Home and Student 2011. From home projects to homework, Office helps you make the most of every opportunity. Create great looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Communicate and share with friends using a Mac or PC with the most compatible productivity software available. Accomplish more with Word®, Excel®, and PowerPoint® 2011.
Come into SouthTec NZ and ask about a deal!
Shop 4 / 219 Trafalgar St, Nelson (Farmers Arcade) Ph: 548 9994
The way we were A focus on our area and its history
When Nelson went to blazes Contributed by Alan Turley town. This was a serious matter in the days before It was during my childhood years. Very few peo- television. ple had telephones. If you wanted to call the fire For not the first time, on 27 May 1948, the kitchen brigade you had to rush up or down the street till block at Nelson College was destroyed by fire. As you found a red metal fire alarm box. You then a temporary measure, big copper cookers were had to find a rock or something to smash the glass brought in to cook for the college boarders in the panel and press the alarm button. This activated open air. Hardly had they restored the kitchen facilities when 15 months later, on 10 August 1949, an alarm panel at the fire station. By this time it was quite often quicker to hop on the completely restored dining room block was your bike and ride down to the station. The other gutted. This time the boarders were sent home problem of course, was that hardly a day went by early for their holidays. without a false alarm being set off and the bro- A double fire catastrophe occurred in 1965 both of ken glass panels having to be replaced. There which the writer was witness to. On Sunday evenwere more false ing of 5 Decemalarms than ber, a major fire genuine calls. broke out at VaThe fire stalet Dry Cleantion had a full ers shop in time staff of Trafalgar St. It about four, one quickly spread of whom was next door to rostered on as Keith Walkers officer of the electrical shop. watch. The rest Extensive fire were all volunand water damteers, most of age necessitated whom made the demolition their way to the of the buildstation by biing. The staff of cycle or other the local radio means when the station 2XN, general alarm which had been located upsounded. Needstairs, showed less to say fire quick initiative callouts often and transferred took some time A line up of fire engines at Nelson Fire Station. Circa 1968. their broadto respond to. Fire callouts were far more frequent than they are casting operation to the hut at the base of the today and some major fires occurred in Nelson transmitter tower at Saxton field (then farm land) where it remained until new premises were set up over the years. Nelsons first fire fatality occurred on 11 Decem- in town. ber 1938 when the recently completed new nurses However, scarcely had the brigade dried out and home in Kawhai St burnt to the ground. The fire, packed up their equipment than the very next it was thought, began in the boiler room and had night, Monday 6 December, another major fire a firm hold of the two story building by the time occurred in the city. The premises of Harley & Co, the brigade arrived. Five nurses jumped from the furnishers in Bridge St were badly damaged and upper floor and suffered bruising, abrasions and all the stock destroyed. Rumors were rife around fractures. However, 22 year old nurse Mary Roth- the town that the second fire was the result of well suffocated in the smoke while sleeping in her arson. It was suggested that a volunteer fireman bed. The tragedy could have been much worse was responsible but nothing ever appeared in the but for the fact that three of the nurses had been paper. called early in the morning for an emergency op- Over the years since, other major fires have occurred including; a furniture factory in Bolt Road eration being carried out in the theatre. On 15 May 1943 another fire fatality occurred in May 1975, a huge forest fire in the Maitai Valwhen Bridge St restaurant propietor George ley in February 1981, the magnificent five story White burned to death, after burning fat set wooden redwood College building in Manuka St his clothes on fire. Fire fighters using respirator in May 1983, the Tae Chang fishing vessel which masks for the first time ever, were able to prevent took three days to put out at Port Nelson in Sepmuch damage to the building but were unable to tember 1984, and “The Warehouse” fire on Trafalgar Square in 1992. save Mr White. My earliest childhood fire recollection occurred This is not an exhaustive mention of all the maon 10 July 1944 when I watched the Regent Thea- jor fires that occurred in Nelson over the period. tre in Collingwood St burn to the ground. The There were others. The last major fire occurred alarm had been given by the occupier of the ad- on 6 January 1996 when the old Majestic Theajoining house, although not burnt in any way they tre in Trafalgar St, by then a church, burnt to the had the misfortune of having the brick wall of the ground along with adjoining shops. Once again theatre collapse through the roof. There was big we had only one picture theatre. consternation among the community after the Nowadays, most of the fire brigade callouts are fire that we only had one picture theatre in the not for fires, but for road accidents.