Visitors to the village are given a copy of the Souvenir Map/info sheet. These are quite handy because the map helps them find their way around and when i see someone with one in their hand, i know where they're going.
On the back of the map there are little stories about people in Waiuta and these correspond to the numbered stones dotted around in the village at relevant sites.
We're about to have the maps re-printed because we've run out, which is good because there's a mistake which badly needs fixing.
The last story is about 'the Can-Man'. Most of the toilets in Waiuta were long-drops, (seats over deep holes in the ground), but some at the top-end were short-drops and their cans needed emptying regularly. The guy who had this delightful job for a long time was an pensioned-off miner and he would change the cans in the middle of the night.
He didn't have a cart, just two cans on a long pole carried across his shoulders. So, of course, the locals all called him 'the Chinaman'. At home, he had a large garden and he grew a lot of strawberries, but even the kids of the town weren't interested in stealing them.
He couldn't sell his produce locally so he used to come down to Greymouth and sell on the side of the street - nobody here knew where they were from and what they were grown in.
Anyway, when the map was printed, through a printer's error, the Can-Man was named as Tony Anisy, which was not right, it should've said Cole Parker.
Tony was actually a dapper little man, of Lebanese descent, who had a small draper's shop in the village. He was always very neat and tidy and generally wore a three-piece suit, even in leisure hours.
His god-daughter, Gwen Poole, nee Jones, came to see us one day and she was mortified that we were telling people that Tony Anisy changed the poo-tins in the night. She said that he'd be spinning in his grave!
So, now we can fix it - the Can-Man was Cole Parker, not Tony Anisy.
Sheesh, politics!
cheers
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