Gold dust

Reader question:

Please explain “gold dust”, as in this sentence: “They have very little to look forward to in their young lives and having a pair of boots or a shirt would be like gold dust to them.”

My comments:

They were poor growing up. They didn’t expect a lot of good things to happen to them today or tomorrow. Having a pair of boots or a shirt to wear while playing, say, the game of soccer would be like a dream come true.

In other words, the boots and a shirt are most precious.

They would, in deed, be like gold dust, or gold, period.

Gold, you see, being a most valued precious metal, is often synonymous with anything of great value.

Oh, gold dust. Gold dust refers to tiny grains of gold scattered round river banks or, especially, stream beds high up the remote mountains. They’re the residue of eons of time. Gold miners used to gather them by hand or using other simple tools.

Dust, as in all the fine dusts of the Beijing smog, implies they’re really small in size.

They’re few and far between too, needless to say. Hence, they’re hard to come by. They’re usually buried within lots of sand and stones. And since “all that glitters is not gold” (you must have heard this expression), it takes a great deal of work in order to separate the gold from the sand.

That is as it should be, of course. Otherwise, gold wouldn’t be so valuable.

Anyways, next time you hear someone say something is like gold dust to them, you know it’s something they treasure and relish.

It must be something that’s hard to come by, remember. Not something you can have everyday.

All right, media examples:

1. Miner’s wife and support group activist Barbara Williams, from Rhondda, described how their work surprised many of their men folk - and how the struggle ultimately proved to be a springboard for many like her.

She said: “The memory doesn't go away. It’s as if it was a few weeks ago.”

The 20 years separating the start of the miners’ strike in 1984 and a freezing winter’s day in 2004 have not lessened Mrs Williams’ crystal clear recall of the days which changed her life.

Her husband Gordon was an electrician at Maerdy colliery at the top of the two Rhondda valleys when the strike began.

Within weeks, she found herself secretary of the newly-formed Maerdy Women's Support Group.

It followed a meeting called by the local National Union of Mineworkers lodge specifically for the wives and women relatives of the striking miners - a first, in Mrs William’s recollection.

She said: “We had to form a committee. Somebody said, you need a treasurer and secretary and my friend said, put your hand up and get involved.

“At the start, no-one would have envisaged that it would have been a year-long strike.

“We realised there was a fight on, but at the end of the day we were fighting to keep the pit open, for the men to keep their jobs to support their families.

“We thought we’d need to give out food parcels, so a couple of women went out with trolleys, going round to shops and door-to-door.

“I think a couple of the men had a shock.”

After successfully organising food collection in the Maerdy area, the women were initially reluctant to co-operate when the NUM regional headquarters in Pontypridd wanted them to hand over their supplies to be distributed centrally.

She said: “We thought, what the hell, there’s no way they’re going to come up here and take over,” she recalled.

“There was quite a lot of food gathered at the miners’ hall and we thought we’d hide it. One of the shopkeepers here let us put it in the shop.

“But there was no need because all the union was trying to do was to make sure everybody got something.”

Mrs Williams said scrupulous efforts were made to ensure everybody on strike had an equal share of the food.

“We were weighing potatoes, counting tea bags - sugar was like gold dust,” she explained.

- Striking Tales: A Wife's Story, BBC News, March 9, 2004.

2. THE world’s print media will be turning its attention to spoof media websites and publications on Tuesday in anticipation of following up a host of world exclusives.

April Fools Day will see the top newspapers churn out their annual ‘spoof’ story and industry experts are predicting that regular spoof writers will in turn try their hand at serious news.

Red-top tabloids and respected broadsheets alike will be focussing too much on creating the best spoof-story and will have no time to fill their pages with exclusives, therefore relying on merely copying stories as they come in.

Tits McCarling, a sub-editor for The Sun, explained: “All our reporting staff will be spending all day Monday trying to come up with the funniest and most original April Fool’s story to get a by-line and add it to their portfolio - an April Fools Day by-line is like gold dust to them.

“In the past we have tried making them focus on writing proper news, such as thinking up stories to centre around the latest picture of Heather Mills pulling a funny face at a camera, y’know proper news, but they just don’t listen.

“We’ve given up this year and are just going to let them get on with it.

“Some may see it as a gamble relying on a whole day’s worth of true events being written by amateurs on a joke website but we are confident it will pay off.”

- World’s media will turn to spoof writers for April Fools news, TheSpoof.com, March 26, 2008.

3. HOMEOWNERS in Oxfordshire face an “unprecedented” fencing shortage following the recent storms and floods that battered the county.

Gardening stores have sold out of stock after customers rushed to replace panels damaged when strong winds reached speeds of 55mph.

Kingston Bagpuize-based Oxford Fencing Supplies manager Richard Carr said he usually stocked 2,000 panels but had sold out.

He said: “The floods were bad but the storms caused unprecedented demand. There’s been more demand than we’ve ever had at this time of year and we’ve got a back order of more than 1,000 panels.

“A lot of people who come in we have to turn away.

“It’s devastating for some because if you look at your back garden and you have three panels missing then you can’t fill it.

“It’s a desperate time and it causes security concerns for people.”

Alex John, yard manager at Oxford Fencing Centre, in Cowley’s Horspath Industrial Estate, said: “We’re under severe pressure trying to meet demands. We’ve gone through three or four months’ of gear in a month - it’s been extreme.

“The company is more than 30 years old and everyone says it’s the worst situation they’ve ever seen.

“We make the panels on site and last Friday, we made 125 panels.

“By 10.30am on Saturday, they were gone.”

Mr John said the centre’s wood was sourced in Ireland but wood-cutting machinery hadn’t been allowed in forests because of the flooding.

Steve Evans, senior salesman in Travis Perkins, West Way, Oxford, said his company had ordered 80 panels two months ago and only 10 were delivered last week because its supplier’s stock was so low.

“Those delivered were sold within a day.

He said: “We’re having a nightmare trying to get hold of 6ft x 6ft panels - they are like gold dust at the moment.

“Nearly every phone call we receive is about fence panels.”

- Fencing panels now like ‘gold dust’ after storms in Oxfordshire, OxfordMail.co.uk, March 27, 2017.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.