The Star: May 03, 2018
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Star</strong> 13<br />
News<br />
Local<br />
News<br />
Now<br />
Horace is 100 and iPad savvy<br />
• By Emily O’Connell and<br />
Kurt Bayer<br />
HORACE LONGSON might<br />
have just turned 100 but using<br />
his iPad to check Facebook is a<br />
breeze.<br />
That’s because he has lived<br />
alongside innovative technology<br />
since World War 2.<br />
When war broke out in 1939,<br />
the railway clerical cadet volunteered<br />
for the air force and<br />
became involved in the secret<br />
world of radar.<br />
Mr Longson was one of a few<br />
in New Zealand trained to use<br />
the Typex British-made cipher<br />
machines.<br />
It scrambled morse code<br />
messages, enabling planes patrolling<br />
the coastline and hunting<br />
Japanese or German submarines,<br />
ships, or aircraft, to communicate<br />
in secret.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> work was extremely<br />
hush-hush but highly-interesting.<br />
And we knew that what we were<br />
doing was special,” he said.<br />
• By Julia Evans<br />
DIGGING INTO the city’s<br />
colonial past has been made<br />
easier with the release of a new<br />
heritage app.<br />
Heritage New Zealand<br />
outreach adviser<br />
Rosemary Baird was<br />
part of a team that<br />
developed the Heritage<br />
Trail – Public Houses,<br />
Private Lives: Excavating<br />
Christchurch’s Colonial<br />
Hotels app, which gives<br />
users a guided walking<br />
tour of sites of the city’s<br />
Victorian hotels.<br />
“We’ve been playing<br />
with the idea of doing an app for<br />
a while. For years I first wanted<br />
to do one on the history of the<br />
Avon River but this was the one<br />
that got off the ground,” she said.<br />
<strong>The</strong> heritage trail is a 3.5km<br />
loop of seven hotel sites ranging<br />
from the 1860s to 1900s, Dr<br />
Baird said.<br />
<strong>The</strong> app starts at<br />
the site of the former<br />
Oxford on Avon<br />
on Colombo St and<br />
loops around locations<br />
including the<br />
Occidental Hotel<br />
on Hereford St, the<br />
Caversham Hotel on<br />
Madras and St Asaph<br />
Sts and finishes in<br />
Cathedral Square at<br />
the Old Government Building.<br />
It uses old photographs and<br />
videos to showcase excavations<br />
Rosemary Baird<br />
Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi<br />
War radar expert keeps up with the play<br />
Mr Longson celebrated his<br />
100th birthday with family and<br />
friends at the Papanui Club on<br />
Saturday.<br />
He is feeling good for his age<br />
but concedes he’s a “bit wobbly<br />
in the legs.”<br />
Mr Longson still attends weekly<br />
church services at St Martins<br />
Anglican church, where he once<br />
operated the sound desk.<br />
“I’m a technician, but the age<br />
of improvements – they’ve gone<br />
digital. <strong>The</strong>y work off a little<br />
laptop screen, a tiny little screen<br />
that Horace finds difficult,” he<br />
said.<br />
On Sunday, the church<br />
celebrated his birthday with a<br />
morning tea and a special ride in<br />
a vintage vehicle.<br />
Born in Temuka in 1918 and<br />
named after his uncle Horace<br />
Prattley who died at the Somme<br />
in World War 1, Mr Longson was<br />
always inquisitive and handy. As<br />
a child, he built his own radio<br />
sets.<br />
After World War 2, he returned<br />
to his railways job and<br />
soon became interested in ham<br />
radio.<br />
He is a life member of the<br />
Amateur Radio Transmitters’<br />
Association. He would also build<br />
his own television sets – his first<br />
had a 15cm screen made from a<br />
radar tube.<br />
Mr Longson retired in 1976<br />
and his wife of 67 years, Brenda,<br />
died about six years ago.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 100-year-old has lived in<br />
the same house for “probably” 60<br />
years and has no plans to move.<br />
“I’ll only go if I’m carried out.<br />
I’m not intending to leave this<br />
house as long as I possibly can,”<br />
he said.<br />
Mr Longson, who doesn’t wear<br />
glasses or hearing aids, says the<br />
secret to reaching 100 is eating<br />
good food and not drinking or<br />
smoking.<br />
<strong>The</strong> most important thing<br />
he’s learnt is to be kind to other<br />
people. “Anything I can do for<br />
anybody, I’m very happy to do<br />
it,” Mr Longson said.<br />
Tour city’s historic pub sites on your phone<br />
and artefacts from the sites, a<br />
lot of which were uncovered<br />
following the February 22, 2011,<br />
earthquake. “If you talk to any<br />
Christchurch archaeologist,<br />
they’ll tell you this city has a<br />
unique collection of archaeology,”<br />
she said. Archaeologists<br />
are called to work on sites of pre-<br />
1900s buildings that are being<br />
Thursday <strong>May</strong> 3 <strong>2018</strong><br />
Fire rages, homes at risk<br />
CELEBRATION: Horace Longson, holding his wedding day<br />
photo, turned 100 on Saturday. PHOTO: MARTIN HUNTER<br />
TOUR: <strong>The</strong> site of the<br />
former Oxford on Avon on<br />
Colombo St is the first stop<br />
in the Heritage Trail app.<br />
PHOTO: CHRISTCHURCH<br />
CITY LIBRARIES<br />
demolished – a common occurrence<br />
after the earthquakes, Dr<br />
Baird said.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> best illustration I can give<br />
you is that the archaeology company,<br />
Underground Overground,<br />
had one or two staff members<br />
before the quakes, now they have<br />
20 or 30,” Dr Baird said.<br />
•To download the app,<br />
search for Heritage Trails<br />
in the Apple App Store or<br />
Google Play Store.