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Description: Not the least of these people are those who regularly write club notes about the CWI, the WDFF, sports clubs, music, art and floral groups, gardeners and senior citizens all contribute to those chatty items we like to read in the paper.

There are some who do a great service: people like the organisers of Easy on the Eye – a column for those with reading difficulty; the Otaki and Levin Historic Societies and, of course the Citizens Advice Bureau. Probably there are more who should be acknowledged.

Perhaps we should include letter-writers on the list since they express a point of view and help us communicate with the rest of the world.

Romance in the workplace

Romance flourishes – even in the workplace and this was the case in the Chronicle from time to time.

But one romance could well be tagged “an exclusive” because it involved two reporters working alongside each other in the reports’ room. It happened it 1974 and the couple were Janice Swanwick and Kent Atkinson. The outcome was a wedding in St Mary’s Anglican Church at 2.30pm, Saturday June 15, 1974.

Levin’s historian?

Corrie Swanwick (or Francis Corrison Swanwick as he likes to be known when writing) could well be termed Levin’s historian.

Because he probably knows more about people, places and happenings of long ago than anyone else in Levin.

And he’s got that way by asking questions of anyone and everyone he can buttonhole and then writing down the facts for posterity.

He’s probably as good a reporter as you’d hope to get.

He gets the facts and gets them right, then puts them down in orderly fashion. There’s no drama, no embellishing them, just the facts – though he’s not above recounting a funny story now and again.

Corrie did a tremendous job when we were compiling the 1981 75^th anniversary supplement. Among other things, he placed the occupants of every shop or commercial property in Levin from Weraroa to the end of Oxford Street and up the side streets too. He got them in date order and if he didn’t know for sure, said so. That wasn’t often.

That document has to go down as one of the most important historical writings Levin will ever know about.

All this from a self-taught writer.