Over the years I have dined, or stayed at some very special hotels. For example Claridges in London, the Oriental in Bangkok, the Grand Hotel in Taipei, and Raffles in Singapore.

          I had dinner at Claridges during food rationing, when I was verbally reporting on my visit to the Governor of the Officer Training Ship, Worcester.

          The Oriental meal was a very special meal to celebrate New Year’s day. My wife, Joyce, took our daughter, Robyn and son-in-law Charles Lambert on the proceeds of the money she was paid for editing a family-planning book for the UN.

          We were staying in the hotel, rightly called the Grand, when the Vice President took the technical staff of the Food and Fertilizer Centre to dinner in Taipei.

          My Singapore printer, Danny Ng, took me to lunch at the famous Raffles Hotel.

          While working in Taranaki I was put on a five month training programme to train new managers. Every three weeks we  spent two weeks in Wellington during this training.

          I was booked into numerous hotels. We never knew where we were going to stay. Most of these hotels have now been demolished – the pick of them was the Midland Hotel.

          When I was the Department of Agriculture Acting Show Superintendent I spent a great deal of time staying in South Island pubs I also had many other reasons for working in the South – that would be in 1949- 53.

          ‘South Island pubs weren’t comfortable but they were homely’.

          If you arrived late after the cook had gone home you were invariably told to go into the kitchen and make yourself a meal.

          “You’ll find eggs, steak and cold meat in the fridge. Help yourself and there is a tin of peaches open somewhere and some ice cream. Make a cup of tea.”

          We had six o’clock closing in those days. No alcohol could be served after six pm and Sunday was a dry day.

          At times, some pubs could be noisy and often exciting especially during a police raid.  

          I remember one night in Dunedin during the days of six o’clock closing and illegal after-hours drinking.

          I was sound asleep when suddenly I was woken by excited voices and to my amazement a crowd of animated bar patrons charged through my room, through an open the window and disappeared into the night down the fire escape.

          They didn’t even shut the window!

          And talking of fire escapes and pubs, the pub I used to stay at in Tuatapere in Southland, when I was helping to carry out ‘mother seed’ potato inspections, was a knotted rope attached to the wall by a couple of iron hooks. How times have changed!

          The biggest pub mistake I make was in Alexandra.

          Willis Burns and I were staying in the Bendigo pub, while carrying out a survey on agriculture in Otago.

          One Sunday morning we were sitting in the lounge writing home in front of a miserable fire. It was midwinter and we were cold.

          There was much hilarity coming from the bar next door – following church, or instead of  – I am not sure which.

          I said to Willis “What say we have a drink before lunch?” He readily agreed, so I pushed the bell on the kbar door to gain admission.

          Unfortunately I pushed it only once not three times. I gave the alarm call for a police raid. By the time the publican opened the door his clients were climbing over the back fence. I was not very popular in Alexandra that weekend!

          How times have changed and so have our hotels and drinking hours. We are now flooded with overseas visitors touring our beautiful country.

Geoffrey Moss(mosassociates.co.nz)

“Nothing is permanent except change”