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EPUB ISBN: 978-0-908327-74-4
PDF ISBN: 978-0-908330-70-6
The original publication details are as follows:
Title: Aunt Daisy & Uncle Sam : Aunt Daisy's war-time journey to United States.
Author: Daisy, Aunt
Published: Whitcombe and Tombs, Christchurch, N.Z., 1945
aunt DAISY & UNCLE SAM
Aunt Daisy broadcasting in Washington
AUNT DAIS V & UNCLE SA M
Aunt Daisy broadcasting in Washington
AUNT DAISY & UNCLE SAM
AUNT DAISY’S WAR-TIME JOURNEY TO UNITED STATES
WHITCOMBE AND TOMBS LIMITED
WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LIMITED CHRISTCHURCH . AUCKLAND . WELLINGTON LOWER HUTT . DUNEDIN . INVERCARGILL, N.Z. MELBOURNE, SYDNEY, PERTH, AUST., LONDON
PRINTED BY WHITCOMBE S.- TOMBS LIMITED
CONTENTS
Chapter
Page
I Why Did I Go? 5
II The Outward Journey 10
III My Arrival in United States 15
IV Broadcasting in America 31
V Television 44
VI American Trains 48
VII Washington 55
VIII A Glimpse of Canada 67
IX Boston 88
X New York 97
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Aunt Daisy broadcasting in Washington
Frontispiec
Facing Pag\
Ginny Sims autographs her own photograph for Aunt Daisy gsj
Aunt Daisy talks to G.l.’s at New York’s Stage Door Canteen 33
Aunt Daisy broadcasting in San Francisco two hours after landing .... 64
Rehearsing for the television appearance 64
Luncheon after the launching of a Victory Ship 65
In the Skyroom of the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco .. .... .... .... 65
Aunt Daisy being shown the Kitchen of Tomorrow .... .... .... gg
Red Skelton and his team greet Aunt Daisy 96
Aunt Daisy inspects Beatty’s munition factory in Canada gy
AUNT DAISY AND UNCLE SAM
CHAPTER I
WHY DID I GO?
Not for a holiday—travelling in war-time is far too strenuous for that. Think of all the difficulties we have in New Zealand about train-priorities, and reservations, queueing up for meals, getting taxis and redcaps, etc., and then multiply everything by a million, and you will have some idea of it.
Not for a rest—there is so much to see and to learn, and so many interesting people to meet, that it would be a waste of opportunity to rest, except when one cannot keep going another minute. Moreover, I had to keep up my regular New Zealand programme, which meant recording over fifty morning sessions to send home, besides some twenty-five other “ talks.” These had to be made and censored within a very short specified period, in order to fit in with shipping space. Then, too, the N.B.C. Recording Studios, in spite of their scores of engineers— (over sixty in K.P.0., San Francisco alone) —are all working 24 hours a day, in order to supply their troops all over the world with all their accustomed programmes; as well as their other regular work; so that I had to be fitted in as best they could, sometimes at 7.30 a.m., sometimes at g.30 p.m., for an hour or two. However, I never had to go on with the “ Graveyard Shift,” which works from midnight onwards!
I went because I want to help, even a little, in the important job of getting Americans and New Zealanders to become intimate friends—to understand each other, and to live as pleasant neighbours do, each gaining something from the other; picking out some of their good ideas and adjusting them to suit ourselves; being eager to give as well as take;
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AUNT DAISY AND UNCLE SAM
and, especially, to be on the watch against prejudice and sweeping generalisation.
My idea was to interest the women; to tell them how New Zealand women live and run their homes; about our pursuits and pleasures and duties; about our great war effort; and to give them our cordial greetings. Conversely, I wanted to see and hear as much as possible about their own war work, as well as their way of living and thinking.
The E>ithusiastic Response
Well, in spite of the gloomiest forecasts from muchtravelled friends, who warned me of the difficulties in the way of getting “ on the America air ” in war-time, I did no less than twenty-seven broadcasts, chiefly in the form of interviews. These were extraordinarily well received, as evidenced by letters and telephone messages from listeners, who were all eager to know more about New Zealand, where so many of their boys had received such generous hospitality. I think we should make a big effort towards encouraging and catering for post-war tourist traffic, for thousands of Americans are planning to make New Zealand their first holiday trip.
Each of these twenty-seven broadcast interviews meant at least one, and generally two, preparatory long talks with the interviewer, and the department concerned, to decide on what to include in the broadcast, because each one must be entirely different. Very often this meant a luncheon at one of the fashionable restaurants, with two or three executives as well —very pleasant functions indeed. I will describe some of these restaurants later on. Then there would be still another meeting before the broadcast, to go over the details and timing. In most cases I was allowed to work without script. I will describe some of these broadcasts as time goes on—some were with men, some with women; some at the luncheon table, one at a kind of Women’s Brains Trust; one, for the office of the United Nations with a Chinese journalist and an American soldier speaking on short-wave from Sydney; one as a “ judge ” on the programme of a mind reader; and one a televised
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interview, at which I talked a little about the Waitomo Caves, and of which the N.B.C. presented me some “ still ” photographs, as a memento.
All this was made not only possible, but also smooth and easy, through the enthusiasm and influence of the great N.B.C. which cabled me before I left New Zealand promising to do everything to help me in my mission. So, from the day I landed in San Francisco until I regretfully sailed away from New York, they looked after me, seeing that I met th 6 right people, saw the right shows, made the right friends, and introducing me to the other networks, which all co-operated wholeheartedly.
Good Friends Back Me Up
Four other organizations gave me great help, and unlocked for me the big gates of difficulty. First, our own New Zealand Legation, through which I got all train and hotel reservations, and my passage home again—all very much more difficult than we in New Zealand can realize, and more so than ever since the invasion began; for sick and wounded are being brought back every day, and sent by special trains all over the country to the hospitals nearest their homes, or best suited to their illnesses. It was through our Legation, too, that I received an invitation to tea with Mrs. Roosevelt at the White Housesuch a delightful and home-like little tea—l’ll tell you all about that too, later.
In fact, the Legation was really like a home and family, for besides helping me over the big mountains of difficulty, it slid me gently over innumerable little hills, and I felt it at the back of me all the time.
Then there was the British Information Services. They do an enormous amount of work with a minimum of publicity. It was they who, together with our very popular and efficient New Zealand representative in San Francisco, Mr. Pilcher, and our liason officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Halliwell, met my ship, got me quickly past immigration and customs officers, and had me addressing a press conference within a half an hour of landing. This press conference started my ball rolling, and
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helped me tremendously. About twenty to twenty-five newspapers were represented, and paragraphs about New Zealand, and “the Lady from Down Under” appeared all over the country, so that I found people knew about me when I arrived at other places. The Christian Science Monitor was particularly generous; and the Washington Post, the New York Post, and the World Telegram followed up with further good articles and photographs when 1 reached those cities. • It was chiefly through the British Information Services too, that I was invited out to see the huge Kaiser shipyards and to give three luncheon talks there. This was a really wonderful experience, and will make a complete story in itself. About 20,000 women alone work there, and they are paid exactly the same as the men for equal work.
Then there were three huge business concerns, which extend all over the world, and with whose New Zealand advertising I am concerned. Through these firms I saw a great deal of specialized work, including the whole process of the manufacture of penicillin; besides receiving the utmost personal friendship and hospitality.
America Links Up With The Daisy Chain
I am very glad to be able to tell you that the interest my broadcasts aroused in America is to have a permanent result; for I was invited to become the first international member of the Association of Women Directors of the National Association of Broadcasters. This influential body of over six hundred cultured women will keep in regular touch with me, and will send me summaries of their meetings and discussions, and of the projects which they undertake. They hold the view that radio broadcasts to women should be treated seriously; should not only raise their cultural level, but also keep them informed as to the work of such bodies as the International Council of Women, in combating social evils, and in the promotion of peace. Last year their chief project was “ the American Home Campaign ” which meant that the underlying “ motif ” of all women’s programmes for a few months was the betterment of the home—materially, spiritually,
WHY DID I GO?
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artistically—every way. Into this campaign were gathered all the Women’s Clubs of America—numbering over 20,000,000 women; and corresponding to our Women’s Institutes, W.D.F.U., University Women’s Club, English Speaking Union, League of Mothers and Mothers’ Union, Catholic Women’s Clubs, National Council of Women, Red Cross and St. John Ambulance, Y.W.C.A., etc. All these were actively concentrating on the Home Campaign for some months, working with American enthusiasm and ingenuity and holding all kinds of competitions in connection with it. The campaign closed with a network broadcast by Mrs. Dickenson, the able and lovely president of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, whom I visited in Washington in connection with our own Women’s Institutes. Mrs. Dorothy Lewis, the enthusiastic promoter of the movement, whose title is N.A.B. Co-ordinator of Listener Activity, and who arranged my membership of the A.W.D., has already posted to me a summary of this home campaign, which, I think, will be of great interest to our own women’s organizations.
CHAPTER II
THE OUTWARD JOURNEY
We left Auckland on April 14th, and we steamed up the beautiful harbour of San Francisco at sunset on April 27th. Very good going! The journey was reasonably comfortable, and fortunately without incident, although we were required to carry our lifebelts with us wherever we went, and had regular boat-drill. When I went aboard, a polite and smiling American officer said, “ Passenger, Ma’am? Stateroom No. 1.” This sounded promising, but a sailor conducted me down first one flight of stairs, and then down a narrower one, and finally down a near-ladder, which led into the first hold! Here a fairly large area had been partitioned off and made ready to accommodate the nineteen American nurses, three New Zealand brides, and myself. There were beds enough for twenty-seven, however—wire bunks painted white and arranged in three tiers down the middle of the room. There were also twenty-seven pegs in the wall, and twenty-seven lockers, in which we kept our shoes and books, and “ what-nots,” hanging our dresses on our peg. Our suitcases we did not unpack more than we could help, and we stowed them away nice and shipshape. The big air-conditioning pipes ran overhead, and the electric lighting was adequate. The large wash-room led out of this dormitory; we had three shower baths, each with hot and cold fresh water—a great boon, not shared by the men on board—and four wash-basins were fixtures against the wall, with mirrors and a little shelf above them. The nineteen nurses were a wonderful crowd. Accustomed to living in tents during their sojourn in the islands, or in their training camps, they understood exactly how to make the most of our limited space; and their neatness and consideration for each other were beyond praise. They were always washing clothes, iron
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THE OUTWARD JOURNEY
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ing on improvised tables, shampooing and setting each others’ hair; they kept themselves immaculate at all limes; they spoke quietly and never disturbed anybody—fine women! They were going home after many months of duty.
The ship was a new one, on her first voyage. We carried a large number of American servicemen. Time passed quickly enough, although there were none of the organized sports and pastimes of peace-time travel—no deck-chairs on spacious decks, no luxurious lounges. The sailors knocked together a couple of rough benches for sitting on the deck, but most of the people just put down their life jackets, and sat on them; or lay on the hatches. Everybody improved in health every day, with lying in the sun, good and regular meals, and above all, the peace of mind and happiness of knowing that a long spell of difficult duty, and, in most cases, a period of sickness in hospital, lay behind them, and that America was drawing nearer every hour. Some had been very ill. One young officer, who started off happily enough, though emaciated and a very unhealthy colour, had a relapse into a very bad condition, of what for want of a better word I may call boils, though they were very much more terrible than that implies, and spread even to his eyelids. Yet he refused to stay in bed—having had weeks of hospital, and kept amazingly cheerful; he said that as soon as he could get penicillin his condition would be cleared up in eight hours. I thought of that boy when I was being shown the penicillin laboratories in Pennsylvania!
The first thing we used to hear in the morning was a cheerful Yankee voice through the loud-speaker system saying, “ This is vev-elly!” And then giving a list of half a dozen names of men who were to report to the galley. Soon we could hear all the men astir; and when I opened the door of our dormitory, to go up on deck for fresh air after the rather trying night—for the blackout was very strict and we had been shut in since dusk the evening before—l would have to slip through the long, long “ chow-line ” outside. The “ chow-line ” was the queue of men going gradually to their breakfast. Each one carried his aluminium table-ware—a dish divided into separate compartments for meat, vegetables, pudding, etc., and mugs,
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knife and fork and spoon. The queue was very long indeed. The men had two good meals a day, and soup and crackers at lunch time. Even so, I think it took all day long to get them all through. They were cheerful, and very polite always to us, as we passed through the line; in the evenings they sat about on the floor of the big hold, playing cards or reading. The heat was often pretty bad, in spite of the air-conditioning. The officers and passengers had three meals a day and no “ chowline.” The food was good and plentiful—we often had turkey and chicken, besides pork, and lots of minced mixtures. The bread was particularly good. We had succotash (a concoction of beans and corn) and fried potatoes and bacon and eggs! And bottled cherries and canned pineapple and grapes and chocolate blancmange. When the weather got hot, which it did after the first two days, we had big jugs of iced tea on the table. The coffee was excellent, as is all American coffee; and the tea was alright too, though it was made American fashion, by putting a little bag of tea into the cup, and pouring boiling water on. Then you press the bag with your spoon until it is steeped enough, after which you put it into the saucer and drink the tea. It does not taste quite like “ tea-pot tea,” but you get used to it, as long as the water really was boiling, which they don’t think matters much! The tea is sold in packets of little bags, each bag being enough for a cup-ful. If you are lucky enough to get a teapot, you can ask them to put in two tea bags. They are all so obliging, will do anything you want, saying, “ Why, sure you can have two teabags—you’re welcome.”
Most of the officers were army and navy surgeons, and psychiatrists, on their way to new duty areas, after months on the islands. They were very interesting to talk to, and no two thought alike on any matter. There were men who knew every capital in Europe, beside South Africa, South America, India, the Philippines. I used to like to sit and listen to them talking together. The younger officers were army or airforce; they used to form groups with the nurses, and talk of their war experiences—which also made fascinating listening. I had three special favourites; one from Texas, one from
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Oklahoma and one from Ohio. They would sit cross-legged on the deck, with some of us grouped round them, and sing cheerful songs to us, in harmony, in very rich, deep voices; one would lead off with the first line of a sort of Hill Billy song, and the others would chip in very harmoniously indeed; they all seemed to know the words, and there were lots of verses. One very popular passenger was “ the professor ” Lloyd Powell, the English pianist and examiner for Associated Board, London. He had just finished examining in New Zealand, and was on his way to Canada. He has an inexhaustible fund of humorous anecdotes of his travels. He and I, and two non-bridge players among the doctors, used to play dominoes in the evening. The only sitting-room was the dining room, when it was not in use for the three sittings at meal-times, or preparations for them. It was quite small, and not air-conditioned; and used to get very hot at night-time, with five or six bridge tables and a fairly large poker schoolall the men smoking cigars and all the women cigarettes (except me), and a very strict black-out stopping any air from outside. Sometimes there would be moving pictures, down in our hold, outside our dormitory. Everybody went, of course, and we sat on the floor. We had to show the picture to relays of men, in afternoons and evenings—there were far too many for one showing. We had church services there, too. The chaplain was American, a Congregationalist, and an excellent man, and the services on Sunday morning were very well attended. He had a little field service altar table which could be used for Catholics or Protestants by reversing the top part. He was the only chaplain on board, and was the friend of every one of the men, lending them books and helping them out in all kinds of ways. He used to have a half-hour of hymns on Sunday evenings, and I marvelled at the way the men rolled up to this sing-song, choosing the hymns themselves, and singing very musically. The American service-book was a very good and comprehensive one—it contained Catholic and Jewish services as well as Protestant, and all the well-known hymns.
Twice there was a ripple of excitement that a ship had been
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AUNT DAISY AND UNCLE SAM
sighted—but each time it turned out to be “ one of ours.” The last two days we ran into a real storm. The ship had very little ballast, and she rolled and pitched and tossed and danced all at once. The meal-times must have been nightmares for the stewards, for over and over again everything on the tables would crash to the floor in spite of the “ fiddles ”; yet they re-set them even with jugs of milk, bottles of sauce, and everything. The old negro waiter at my table felt shaky and nervous, and turned a queer colour. One evening, after ten minutes of exceptionally rough tossing, when anyone could be excused for feeling a bit anxious, the sea seemed to quieten for a bit, as it does sometimes. I said to him—” Why, Terry, it is getting better, I think ’’—and the old darky, rolling his eyes till they seemed all whites and no colour, replied, Mis Daisy, when Jesus Christ was on dis earth. He said one day to the storm ‘ Peace, be still ’—and I guess maybe He’s sayin’ it now.” Later in the night, when the storm got worse, I thought of the simple faith of that old coloured man.
The sea was still very rough as we passed through the Golden Gate at sunset next day. 1 shall never forget the beauty of that evening—the clouds all rolled back, the rich colours of the sunset, the big green hills behind the lovely harbour, and the feeling of security now that we had arrived safely.
Everybody crowded the decks, thrilled to pass under the wonderful Golden Gate Bridge—it always looks as though the mast must knock against it, until you really do pass under it—with room to spare! Loud groans from the troops greeted the nonchalant announcement through the loud speaker—- “ Now you can all take it easy, because nobody’s goin’ ashore to-night.” So we had to content ourselves with the lovely sight of the brilliantly lighted city of San Francisco, the long Oakland Bridge with trains passing along its lower deck like lighted snakes, and losing themselves in the tunnel; and the beautiful graceful sweep of the Golden Gate Bridge across the harbour; and then away to bed, to dream of tomorrow’s new adventure.
CHAPTER 111
MY ARRIVAL IN UNITED STATES
I told you, earlier on, how I was met at the ship and bustled through the immigration department and the customs, to keep the appointment which had been made for me to address a press conference. Any idea of presenting a smart appearance had to be given up, for we had only half an hour to get off the ship, and into the hotel and then to the conference. I would have liked to get a hair-do, after the hot and crowded sea-trip; the very thought of making an important speech, without any preparation, which would be reported by all those newspapers, without first fortifying myself with a cup of tea, was sufficiently appalling, without the additional discomfort of knowing that one certainly did not look one’s best. I did suggest timidly enough that a cup of tea would be nice—not knowing that the wonderful “ room service ” of American hotels has been badly hit by war-conditions, and that the old days of practically immediate attention were no more. However, Lieutenant-Colonel Halliwell entered into the spirit of things, and we each put a good pinch of tea (of course, Aunt Daisy never travels without a pound of tea in her suitcase!) into a tooth-glass and fdled up with water out of the hot tap in the bathroom! It tasted a little bit like tea, anyhow! Even after the conference we couldn’t have proper tea, for we had to drive straight to the Hotel St. Francis for a broadcast luncheon! A fashionable photographer holds this programme every week, and very popular it is too. You have a real luncheon first—with the sponsor and the four guests, and the two announcers, a lady and gentleman, from one of the radio stations. Then the microphones are put on the table, and you go on the air. The lady was from the San Francisco Chronicle, and was exquisitely dressed in pale grey, with the most
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ridiculous and charming hat. (San Francisco is noted for its well-dressed women.) Moreover, she was as lovely in her nature as in her appearance, and made me forget that I hadn’t had a chance to really smarten up since I left Auckland, a fortnight before. She did the main part of the radio interviewing of the guests, though everybody chipped in a little and it was delightfully informal and very interesting. The other lady guest was the president of one of the Services’ clubs, and she gave a very interesting account of their activities, and of the soldiers whom they entertained. The two men were a circus artist, and a local politician, and our lovely lady drew them out very cleverly and with considerable humour. The circus man was a bear-trainer, but was just about to join the Army, and was very sad at having to part with his bear friend, Laura. She had even been televised with him, and f hope she will be waiting to work for him again after the war. The lady in grey was my main questioner, but all the others wanted to know things, too, and I really had a wonderful time. (I’d had some good strong stimulating coffee for lunch!) Wherever I broadcast there always was more excitement over the New Zealand part than any other—just mention New Zealand and everyone takes notice—though many people still seem to think we are part of Australia! Anyway, there was enough interest to warrant putting me on the air within two hours of my landing!
After that, we drove to the office of the San Francisco Chronicle, to be interviewed by their chief lady editor, Zilfa Escourt. This lady has interviewed Madame Chiang Kai Shek and George Bernard Shaw, and all the most prominent people; for San Francisco has become a very much bigger international centre since the war began; so I felt very honoured and was glad to tell her all I could of New Zealand. She has a most sympathetic personality, and on another occasion drove me out to see a very interesting nursery school, where both white and coloured babies are minded all day while their mothers are at war work. This organization is a good example of co-operation and does show how possible it is for the races to work side by side. Fifty per cent, of the children are white
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and the others are coloured, and Chinese and Philipino. It has always been run by a coloured president, Mrs. Jewel, who started it in 1933 for the babies of poor parents, and who struggled against great difficulties until after the Americans came into the war, when the Women’s Voluntary Services joined in with her, and helped her to run it for the babies of all working mothers. The school has always been free, even though Mrs. Jewel often had to spend her own money in maintaining it; but now, of course, the W.V.S. find the money, although Mrs. Jewel, and I believe her assistants, work for nothing. It is a big affair now; a doctor comes once a week to examine everybody and a qualified nurse comes every morning for an hour or two. Mrs. Jewel is a most delightful person, the typical large, kindly, Southern mammy, with a city business-woman’s brain; immaculate in freshly starched cotton dress and white apron, and in full control of her four teachers, her cook and her janitress, and cognisant of every detail of the work. “ Jewel House ” is a large oldfashioned three or four-storyed place; the floors and stairs are beautifully kept; the bedrooms are divided into cubicles, and the children all have their own cots, each with a pretty patchwork quilt. They rest for twenty minutes before their midday dinner, and for two hours in the afternoon, with teachers on duty all the time, so that each baby can have a little love and comfort if it wakes up in a fright. They all have their daily cod liver oil in the morning, something sensible at ten o’clock and a properly balanced hot dinner at noon. They have plenty of free play in the big old garden; nurseries with every kind of toy, musical games and songs, with their teachers; and fruit juices or hot chocolate before going home, according to the time of year. As Zilfa Escoun and I sat chatting with Mrs. Jewel, a little negro boy came slowly marching through the room, followed by about a dozen other children of all sizes. He had dressed himself as a prince, with trailing bright-coloured silk, and a gold crown, from the play cupboard; and led his retinue proudly past the visitors. Mrs. Jewel said, “ That’s Adam—he’s a born leader—the other children make an idol of him—they cluster round him all day.
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and he does nothing—he just sits!” She finds that watching the different children’s characters develop never loses its fascination. She only keeps them until they are four years and nine months old.
A further service given by the W.V.S. to the mothers of these children is the supplying of the evening meal. This is cooked in the kitchen of one of the leading hotels, and put up in proper cartons for them to take home. The price is really less than cost, and the meal is a properly balanced one. What a boon to the tired mother after her day’s work, to collect a clean, happy, well-fed baby, and also the evening’s meal, all ready to eat, except perhaps for a little heating up. The biggest and most complete nursery school I saw in America was at the Kaiser shipyards, which is run on exactly the same lines by the Maritime Council—a specially constructed, beautiful building, which takes about eight hundred children between the ages of two years and five and a half years. All these little ones are really getting a fine start in life. The nurseries are staffed by devoted nurses, and the children get a lot of love and personal attention.
Women in Industry
One of the greatest post-war problems everywhere, will be the attitude of women towards giving up well-paid jobs and returning to what many thousands of them consider household drudgery. It is true that the normal woman does want her own home, a husband and a family; but in all too many cases, owing to lack of help, old inconvenient houses, overcrowded conditions, and the like, she gets run-down in health, loses her looks and her energy, and looks back regretfully upon her unmarried days, when she worked in factory, shop or office, under excellent conditions, and had her own money to spend—not necessarily upon herself alone. This question is being studied by the Women’s Organizations in America and Canada, and 1 was most interested in getting the points of view.
For the woman in industry, everything possible is done tc make her happy—whether from altruistic motives, or because
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her output is thereby so greatly increased, or both, doesn’t really affect the question. 1 was taken over one big drapery store in New York where the Women Employees Cafeteria was in process of being soundproofed, so they could have quiet meal-times. The workers in all industries are on velvet as far as meals are concerned; for instead of waiting in long queues as the general public does, first to get a table, and then for at least half an hour before the harassed attendants can get the order from the kitchen, the industrial-workers get the costprice meal, in their own cafeterias, without any delay at all; and so have time afterwards for shopping, or for resting on a sun-roof provided with awnings and deck-chairs!
Moreover, the industrial worker generally has specially designed work-rooms, well-lighted and painted in pastel shades and equipped with radio; besides the enormous advantage of a small hospital, white-tiled and with growing plants in the windows, uniformed nurses, sunlamps, and so on.
It is felt that a scheme will have to be developed whereby housekeeping and homemaking for the ordinary woman may be made less onerous. Women’s organizations intend taking a hand in the designing of houses, which will include every possible labour-saving device and save unnecessary drudgery. Automatic dish-washers, washing and drying machines, refrigerators, deep-freezers, and so on, will become accepted as necessities, and not luxuries. Domestic science will be a compulsory subject in schools; and domestic service, by special training and the granting of diplomas, will be raised to the same level as dental or nursing service. In Ottawa, the National Council of Women has this already under way; and Mrs. Edgar Hardy, 0.8. E., together with some of her committee, gave me a very interesting interview on this subject. It is on such matters as these that the importance of keeping in close touch with American Women’s Organizations is revealed.
The Kaiser Shipyards
Probably the most thrilling experience of my whole trip was my visit to the Kaiser shipyards. Everybody knows about their really miraculous output—soo ships from four yards in
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three years!—to say nothing of the construction of the yards themselves, first of all, among marshes and mudlands, and the cutting down of hills—quite high hills!—and the providing of housing and accommodation of all kinds, including schools and nurseries and hospitals, for more than 80,000 people. The Readers’ Digest has given us a comprehensive account of the shipyards; and people have almost got used to the wonder of it—have begun to take the most colossal figures for granted, and even to joke a bit about building Liberty ships so fast. But it isn’t any joke when you actually see even a little of the place itself, and hear even a little about the lives of the people who work there. It wasn’t a joke either, when our ships were being sunk faster than we know even now; and the need arose for ships and more ships to be built. There weren’t even enough yards to build them in when the first contract was signed here; and California was only one of the many places in Britain and America where ships had to be built, at that time when “ the world began to split along the seams over in Europe,” as they picturesquely described it to me.
It was the indefatigable representative of our New Zealand Government in San Francisco, Mr. Pilcher, who arranged, through the British Information Services, for me to be invited to the Kaiser shipyards, as we call them. Actually the Permanente Metals Corporation and Kaiser Cargo Inc. and Richmond Yard are included in the group. On the appointed day, their very efficient and attractive public relations officer. Miss Alice Mano, arrived at 9 o’clock in the morning at my hotel, in a large car, and picked us up—Mr. and Mrs. Pilcher, Mrs. Pearce, of Station K.P.O. (the manager’s secretary) and myself. It is a very lovely drive, over the long Oakland Bridge and then along the Kaiser road leading to the yards. This road had to be specially constructed to carry the Kaiser traffictrucks and lorries—hundreds of buses for the thousands of workers (three shifts in 24 hours) —and cars for those who bring other workers—and railways running parallel to the road. More than 80,000 people take a lot of transport! At shift-change, with those coming and those going, it is like an army on the move.
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Soon we could see the forests of cranes cris-crossing in the sky; and then we drove into Yard Two. Enormous work-sheds are built in orderly fashion, and you pass along roads between them, much like the arrangement in our military camps. Then there were concrete “ basins ” in which were partly-built ships, half-concealed by scaffolding; and all the time the noise of hammering o'f metal, and louder noises still as we passed the open doors of different work-shops, through which we could see showers of sparks flying like fireworks. Occasionally there would pass us a long truck or trolley carrying perhaps, a deckhouse—all prefabricated, wiring and everything complete, all ready to be dropped into its place on a deck. Often they are constructed upside down, to save overhead welding; and it is a wonderful sight to see a crane lifting up a whole deck-house, turning it over in mid-air, and putting it down in its right place! What expert crane drivers!
Welding is one of the favourite jobs for women, so I was interested to see it. It is really sewing up a metal seamfastening two plates of steel together, and melting the end of a rod of steel into the crack. They hold the rod in one hand and an acetylene torch in the other, and the steel melts into the crack like sealing-wax. Welders wear a kind of metal hood, or face-shield, which can be pushed up or down, like the visor of an armoured knight, to protect their faces; and goggles to protect the eyes. They must also wear leather trousers and jackets. We were warned to avoid getting a “ flash ” from a welder’s torch—the eyes are quite painful for 24 hours after. I talked to several welders; they were all most interested to hear I was from New Zealand, and most of them had some relative in the Pacific. There are 20,000 women working in the yards. They are very well cared for; can lie down for an hour if they are ill, in comfortable cotrooms, with a nurse or two on duty; and they have a tenminute break both morning and afternoon. Their dressing rooms, too, are comfortable and well-equipped; and they are paid exactly the same as men for equal work.
We walked through miles of “ shops,” climbing up stairs, and walking along gangways between showers of sparks from
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the welders; and looking up at overhead travelling cranes coming along, carrying tremendous sheets of steel, and laying them on a pile, something like a dish of pancakes, with men arranging blocks between to keep them from touching each other; and seeing giant machines planing steel plates—all kinds of wonderful work—and such a terrific noise!
Welding is only one of the jobs women do; they make good burners and chippers, and spray painters, markers, and sweepers and counters—and chasers! The chippers follow the welders; the weld leaves a rough edge which the chippers come along and chip off with a pneumatic chisel—it makes a fearful noise, and jars the chipper badly, so that fewer women choose to be chippers than burners or spray-painters. The burners cut through steel-plates with an acetylene torch —they cut out in sheets of steel from the wooden patterns or “ templets ” which are made upstairs on a very smooth wooden floor, like a huge dance-floor. These wooden patterns are laid on the steel plates and the outline traced in yellow, just like laying a paper pattern on a piece of material. Then the burner cuts round the outline, the thin blue flame of the torch biting quickly and easily through the steel, like scissors through paper.
A chaser has to go round the yard looking for special bits of material asked for by the fitters; she must understand exactly what is wanted, and be quick, too; and send the stuff by the riggers to where it is needed. Markers chalk up on metal-sheets what size rod to use to weld it into place; and counters keep track of the numbers of feet the welders do—among other things. The sweepers, too, are really important, for an unbelievable amount of good material is salvaged from the rubbish they collect. I saw a crew of men salvaging copper from piles of swept-up wire; and millions of “clips” and “ dogs ” are made from scraps of metal.
It is extraordinary how the women workers manage to preserve a feminine touch—the bandanna with which they are obliged to cover their hair is always a bright one, and a scarlet or blue jumper, or red slacks, add a very welcome touch of colour among all the dark clothes of the men. Safety
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inspectors are always on the watch to see that rules are obeyed. No jewellery must be worn—not even rings. Once a spark fell on a woman’s hand and melted together her wedding ring and another, so that they could not be taken off until cut through! No floating ends of neck-wear or anything which could catch in machinery are allowed; and goggles must be worn. But of course, there are so many jobs that some don’t need special dress; and even the women doing heavy work keep their skins fresh and clear, and look so healthy that the lack of make-up doesn’t make them at all less attractive. I saw some beautiful women, some young, and some quite elderly, too, for the need for workers in the shipyards is great, and nobody who can qualify for a job is turned away.
When a woman—or man either—applies for a job, she is first interviewed in a “ hiring hall,” and the kind of job she is best suited for decided upon. Then she “goes to school” for the necessary training—and then into “ shops ” till she is ready to go to work. Women safety inspectors are always about, and accidents are very few.
Very wise and tactful women are those who have secured jobs as “ counsellors,” for to them come any woman who has a problem which hampers her in her work—problems about her housing or her children, or health; sometimes she just cannot work with the team to which she has been assigned—all kinds of problems arise when there are 20,000 women working on a job, women of different classes and upbringing—from farms and offices and beauty parlours and quiet homes—from every walk of life. And although starting work is voluntary, quitting is not. But the counsellors do a wonderful work in adjusting these difficulties, and the mental atmosphere of all the Kaiser yards is extraordinarily bright and happy. Nobody seemed rushed or “ driven.”
The Maritime nursery schools, twenty-six of them, take care of the workers’ small children—and so well, that one wonders whether there is not something to be said for this method of bringing up little ones. Certainly there are no “ problem children ’’—not even any naughty ones, I think—
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the) are so wisely directed and not over-governed or fussed over; and yet there are so many nurses that there is an abundance of individual attention and above all, love and interest in the children, by these trained girls and women. I expect that word trained accounts for the success of the schools. The children develop individuality and are not treated as groups only; indeed each “trainee” seemed to love every child in her division, and to be as proud of each as a mother; while the children themselves learn to live as units of a big family, to be unselfish and adaptable.
There were 162 little ones in the school I went over. They were just waking up from their after-dinner rest when I went in. The blinds were drawn over the large windows in the big airy dormitory, which is divided by screens into little rooms, holding four cots each. Ihe screens are decorated with pictures of nursery rhymes or flowers, and every child has its own cot, with a pretty quilt, each with some distinguishing little mark—a pussy or a puppy or something. It was so dim and cool and restful. Here and there a wee one was having a cuddle with its “ teacher,” having wakened a little early; and the others looked so sweet lying asleep, clutching gollywogs or dolls—their slippers neatly arranged side by side under each cot. All the workers in every nursery school, including even those who keep the kitchens and playrooms clean, have to pass a complete physical examination. The children are immunised against small-pox, diphtheria and whooping cough. They play outside in many small yards instead of one big one; and their little tables and chairs are enamelled in pastel colours. From a perfect diet kitchen comes their food, prepared by certificated cooks; each child has its proper quota of cod liver oil, and milk, and its balanced dinner every day. Of course, some critics argue that all this encourages mothers to shirk responsibility; but as the solving of a war-time problem it seems to work excellently. The old idea of “ men must work and women must weep ” has gone by the board long ago. In this war, women must work too; and the proper care of the children is surely tremendously important.
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At the entrances to the yards are canteens and shops where the workers can buy box lunches if they wish, or flasks of coffee or milk. There are also several cafeteria for those who prefer to sit down to a cooked meal—all run on a non-profit-making basis.
Lunchtimes start at three different times—ll.3o, 12 and 12.30, according to the time the workers came on duty in the morning; and at each one there is a broadcast programme—sometimes vaudeville provided by the entertainment groups (for among the 80,000 workers there are, of course, professionals of every kind); sometimes wrestling, or boxing, or conjuring, sometimes orchestras and bands; and concert parties. Often the programmes are held on an outdoor platform; sometimes in a big hall; but loud-speakers always carry it throughout the whole works. On the day I was there, f had to give a little talk on all three programmes. Practically everyone there seemed to have a relation of some sort in New Zealand, judging by the interest displayed—either a marine or a soldier or a sailor. I said as much as I could in ten or fifteen minutes; and shook hands with lots of people afterwards. That was when I had the thrill of meeting the two New Zealand girls—Ruth and June, from Hawkes Bay. They had been on a pleasure trip in California when the war got bad; so they decided that instead of taking up room on a ship to go home, they would stay awhile and help build more ships. So they joined up with Kaiser and learned welding! Their reputation is very high indeed. They certainly are a great example of New Zealand grit.
We had an amusing item on the outdoor programme, called “ Presenting the Broom.” Yard Two had won this trophy for the cleanest yard, and would hold it for a month. The crowds sat on boxes or rugs round a fair-sized stage, and up to this drove a great truck on which stood a big cardboard woman, dressed in red, white and blue, with a fancy apron—quite a charming face, too, so that it was a joke when a loud but mincing voice issued from the rosy lips, as the man inside the figure sang and cracked jokes with the compere beside “ her.” She pushed “ her ” hands through the arm-
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holes, and waved a fan and plucked shyly at her apron and beckoned to favoured friends in the audience. The compere had a portable mike, and held it to the “ lady’s ” lips, f hey did quite a good item, and caused roars of laughter. The broom is a colossal affair—about twelve feet long. It was presented to this lady, who represented the yard. This item put the audience in a good mood for my “talk.” A terrific roar of laughter pealed forth when I told them how one of their boys in a New Zealand hospital where I visited had gone into the ward kitchen and made for me a Californian fizz! I gathered that the true fizz would be considerably reinforced! —and I hope I convinced them that this was not forthcoming in the aforesaid hospital.
One of the principal reasons for the contentment and happiness of the Kaiser workers is their hospital service—the largest and most successful health plan in the United States. Each worker pays half a dollar a week; and for that is entitled to receive every kind of specialized treatment—not by any means only for accidents, whether occurring at work, or even at home, but also for any illness of any kind, even if contracted long before coming to work at Kaiser’s, for there is practically no age limit to getting a job in the yards; and no medical test to pass.
1 he Kaiser hospitals are model clinics, staffed by ninetyone specialist-doctors, and 526 nurses; and the Oakland hospital is being enlarged. There are eye clinics, X-ray units, physio-therapy departments, plaster rooms; dental rooms; ear, nose and throat departments; even insulin for diabetics, and vitamins for deficiency diseases. The hospitals are up-to-date models, have six-bed wards, and smaller ones for bad cases. No one is treated hurriedly—even an ordinary cold is regarded as potentially serious and precautions against pneumonia (formerly so very prevalent among the mists and fogs of the district), have practically eliminated that dreaded disease. These are called field hospitals; there are also, of course, first aid centres in the yards. Moreover, this hospital service has now been extended through the co-operation of the California physicians’ service, to the wives and children of the workers.
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Health centres are established at the housing projects, a small sum is voluntarily paid each month, and when a man, woman or child falls sick, they need not hesitate to call on their full-time well-paid doctors, and nurses, who are able themselves to manage a large percentage of the illness and who send on the more serious cases to the hospitals. The great point of the Kaiser health plan, is that the small weekly or monthly payments not only provide the salaries of the specialists and the physicians, and also the cost of the free pharmacy—X-ray plates and everything else—but are also paying off the cost of the building and equipment of the hospitals. The debt on the Permanente Hospital is being paid off at the rate of 50,000 dollars a month. And the people are not only cured when they are ill, but by being able to take their sickness at its commencement, without thought of cost, to the full-time, well paid, highly qualified specialist or physician, are saved from subsequent illness; so that appendicitis and pneumonia, tuberculosis and cancer and other cruel diseases will not be allowed to develop. The prevention of illness is even better than its cure. The building up of such health plans and clinics all over America is being dreamed of; and what splendid openings will thus be available to the thousands of young doctors returning from the war, to specialize in some particular branch of surgery or medicine.
I must finish my story of the Kaiser shipyards by telling you about the launching I was invited to see, through the kindly courtesy of Mr. Harris Nash, of the Public Relations Department, and of Mr. Clay P. Bedford, the vice-president of this great ship-building centre. Mr. Bedford is also general manager of the Richmond yards, and has worked with Henry Kaiser for nineteen years—as assistant engineer on a great Cuban highway project, which cost twenty million dollars; and then again at Boulder Dam and Grand Coulee and others; a wonderful man. Once again a car called for me in San Francisco, and drove me right in to Yard Two, as far as a little flight of wooden steps leading up to a platform under a temporary roof, ringed around with electric bulbs, and provided with rows of folding chairs. There was nothing
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elaborate about it, and work was going on all the time, even on the ship about to be launched—Richmond’s 541st ship! Cranes were still working overhead, her sides were still being spray painted, other ships were being hammered on near by—the noise was such that one could hardly make oneself heard. “See that ship over there?” said Earl Darfleur to me (he is the Director of Programmes and Special Events) pointing to quite a big hull that was already well on the way to completion, “ she has grown up as far as that since we launched a ship from that place yesterday!” An old piano stood at one end of the platform, and grouped round it were the “ Flarmonettes,” a dozen high school girls, all daughters of Kaiser workers, who were to provide the singing for the occasion. They wore bright red smocks, and a big white flower in their hair. Seated on the chairs were the official group, the consul for Brazil, and the Vice Consul, and their wives, and a priest to read the Dedication of the ship, and Mrs. Bedford and some other official guests—and me. The ship was to be named the “ Mello Franco,” in honour of the late Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, a great diplomat and humanitarian. She was one of the Victory ships—one had been named for Australia not long before.
Mello Franco’s son, a diplomat in Washington, had come for the ceremony, and his wife was to launch this ship for Brazil, Very large and beautiful bouquets of flowers were presented to the ladies; the inevitable photographs were taken; Mr. Clay Bedford made a speech; the Harmonettes sang, really charmingly, a Spanish song; the Brazilian Consul made a speech in Portugese; the priest read the dedication; and then Mr. Mello Franco released the “ trigger,” his wife swung the bottle of champagne (swathed in red, white and blue ribbon) against the ship, and then—oh, such an emotional moment—she slid quite quickly down the ways and into the water, with hardly a splash—just a little foam as she turned around and floated so proudly on the blue and glittering sea. I had watched the men knock out the two blocks which held her; six men on each side of two heavy battering rams, if that is the right name. These rams have six handles
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on each side, and the teams swing them at the blocks with great precision; several blows are necessary, and they must keep exactly together, so that both blocks are knocked away at once.
Even as I recovered my composure (for a launching is a wonderful thing to see for the first time), and as we began to greet each other and to come down from the platform, the men were already preparing the empty space down below for the next ship to be built; a crane came over with a great rod or beam, and Mr. Darfleur said, “ By tonight a new keel will be down.” No taking the day off for a celebration! Ships are now launched every day!
Then the little procession round the yards started—the visitors were to be taken round a little to see the people at work. It was a compliment to New Zealand that “ Aunt Daisy Basham ” drove in the general manager’s car with Mrs. Bedford and Mrs. Harris Nash. From the roof of one high building we had a glorious view of all the yards, and the roads and railways which carry the workers, and the forests of cranes and scaffolding—the half-finished ships already in the water and being worked upon, the blue sea glittering in the bright sunshine; and in the background, the great city of San Francisco and all its suburbs, spread over the high surrounding hills. A truly glorious sight. I’m sorry I was not able to see it by night—it must be like a kind of industrial fairyland. The lights are directed downwards to prevent skyglow; but the cranes and whirlies look less prosaic and more romantic; and the sparks from thousands of welders and burners make it a gigantic firework display. Kaisers’ work twenty-four hours a day.
Then we had a very pleasant luncheon, in a separate building surrounded by green lawns. Charming girls pinned a gardenia upon each lady’s shoulder and fixed a red carnation in the coats of the men. We each found our places set at the long U-shaped table, decorated with beautiful flowers; and we had fruit cocktails and celery and stuffed olives; and hot creamed lobster in the half-shell, and potato straws, and plates of salad and hot asparagus and rolls and butter; and
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ice-cream and macaroons, and coffee; and, of course, iced water. A really delightful musical programme was given by a small orchestra and soloists at one end of the room. They were all yard workers, and wore their overalls and went back to work as their time expired, while others came and took their places. Most of them were professional artists. The Harmonettes sang special songs for special guests—their own launching song called “ Smooth Sailing ” for the Mello Franco party at the head of the table; and a love-song in Spanish for a rather embarrassed young lieutenant—the words were “ Kiss me much and make my dreams come true”; and then, to my amazement, “ Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer, Do ’’—for me!! They certainly boosted up New Zealand.
Then 1 was driven back to San Francisco; and my sub conscious mind hummed the popular song from “ Okla homa
Oh, what a beautiful morning!
Oh, what a beautiful day!
I hey told me that the most hilarious of all their launching ceremonies was the one taken by Gracie Fields. She sang for them “ The White Cliffs of Dover,” and followed it up by a short characteristic speech, by which she had 5,000 men (to say nothing of the women), all laughing and weeping and cheering at the same time.
CHAPTER IV
BROADCASTING IN AMERICA
I took part in twenty-seven broadcast programmes—and they really were “ different ” and quite interesting—to me at any rate. For instance, there was “ Listen, the Women,” which is a kind of Women’s Brains’ Trust, and quite good fun. It is very popular, and is going to be started in South America, I understand. I think we could easily work it up in New Zealand. It is a Blue Network half-hour programme, and comes on Sunday afternoon. Like all American programmes, it is a “ Live Show ’’—that is it is held in one of the large studiotheatres, which is filled with an audience, who have applied for tickets. These studio shows go on all day and every day, and every evening, too; and are always packed—in New York, in Chicago, in Hollywood, in San Francisco—everywhere. Some shows, of course, have terrific waiting lists, such as Charlie McCarthy, Gracie Fields, Fibber McGee and Molly, Bing Crosby and Red Skelton, and of course. Command Performance and Mail Call, at which the popular stars all appear gratis. If you stay long enough you can see almost every show, and every star, from Ronald Colman, Lionel Barrymore, Little Margaret O’Brien, and Toscanini conducting the N.B.C. Symphony Orchestra—down to “ Take it or Leave it,” and “ Stage Door Canteen.” The field is wide; it includes everything; it is America. There is something for everybody.
In “ Listen, the Women ” you have a question mistress, who sits at a table on one side of the stage, facing the panel of four women at another table. The question mistress and three of the panel are permanent; the fourth member is a guest. They have had Vicki Baum, the novelist; Eleanor Darnton, woman’s editor of the New York Times; Margaret Bourke-White, an international war-correspondent and photographer for Life—and numbers of interesting women visitors from all over the world. New York is always full of interesting visitors. The
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question mistress is Miss Janet Banner, of the New Yorker Magazine, who lived for seventeen years in Europe, mostly in Pans, and gave to New York readers an intimate picture of the personalities of the day. She hopes to return there soon and continue that work. On the panel are Mildred Thomson, Dean of Vassar College, a very balanced and keen-witted woman; and Miss Thyra Winslow, a journalist and storywriter, who sees always the funny side of the question, and whose provocative comments liven up the whole programme. I he questions come in from all parts of the country; some are controversial, some serious, some trivial. I think a committee picks out the questions to be dealt with each Sunday; but the panel-members have not the slightest idea what is going to be fired at them. I was the guest on one occasion, and the questions chosen asked what we thought of war marriages between American boys and English or Australian girls; (they didn’t mention New Zealand-the writer was probably one of those who think it is the same as Australia!) whether there would be any trouble getting women war-workers back into the home after the war; and so on—the same questions which are being asked everywhere. The trivial side was presented by a question as to how men could protect themselves against a womans tears! When my turn to answer came, 1 said something to the effect that in my country women didn’t cry very often anyhow, and that after all the fine training our \\ aacs and Waafs, etc., had gone through, there would be less crying than ever; but that if a woman did cry, it would be for a very good reason, and that it was up to her man to put his arm round her and say, “ Why, my darling, what is the matter, how can I help you?” A veritable storm of applause from the audience greeted this, and several women came up afterwards to shake hands and say how lovely New Zealand men must be to take it like that!
Another “ Coast-to-coast ” programme was an interview by Commando Mary,” a cultured and much-travelled American lady, who has been allowed to see women at warwork in more than fifty factories. I understand that she has lived in Russia, as well as for some years in Paris; she is cer-
Ginny Sims autographs her own photograph for Aunt Daisy
Aunt Daisy talks to G.l.’s at New York’s Stage Door Canteen
Ginny Sims autographs her own photograph for Aunt Daisy
Aunt Daisy talks to G.l.’s at New York’s Stage Door Canteen
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tainly an arresting personality. To arrange our broadcast I went to tea with her in her home in an old-fashioned, interesting part of New York called Gramerecy Park—a big old house with very large rooms and high ceiling and French windows opening on to balconies which overlook the quiet little park, with green grass and old trees enclosed within high iron railings. The ornamented panelling of the big drawing room, and the fine ornaments and mirrors, she had brought back from France with her; and coming out of busy modern New York streets into this charming home in its quiet backwater was like stepping into another, older world. Her programme comes on Sunday morning; and the week before my appointment she interviewed Miss Caroline Hazlett, from London, who is, 1 believe, the director of “ woman-power ” for England. I went to meet her—a great privilege, for she is an outstanding person doing an enormous work, yet so simple and sweet and gracious. She had come over for a big conference, and said how much she was enjoying the safety, and the abundance of beautiful food in New York, although she could hardly help feeling guilty in eating it while all her friends at Home had still so little variety. It was only three days afterwards that I met her at the Good Housekeeping Institute, where she had just received a cable from England saying that her office had been destroyed by a robot bomb, and that they were carrying on with a depleted staff! She was going back within a couple of days. “ Commando Mary ” conducted our interview splendidly, and I told a little about our beauty spots, as well as our women’s war-work. A lot of interest was raised by my mention of our big revival of spinning in New Zealand, not only by the Navy League, but by the Women’s Clubs generally. They thought it wonderful, too, about the children gathering up wool which the sheep have rubbed off on the wire fences, and the spinning and dyeing in schools. As to our big work in paper mache—all the hospital equipment and so on, which we have specialized in, as well as the hand-painted trays and vases, and beautiful dolls’ heads—that seemed to astonish and thrill the listeners more than anything; and I am still receiving letters forwarded from America asking for
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more details about paper mache. 1 refer these letters to Mrs. Whatley, at 21 Courtenay Place, Wellington, president of our committee for the Utilization of Waste.
One of the strangest programmes I took part in, was that run by a mind reader or master mentalist, as he is called. It is a coast-to-coast programme, and immensely popular, as anything magic always is. You might wonder what I could do on that programme, and indeed, it was not much; yet it did give New Zealand a good “ boost,” and I had reports on this programme from many sources; besides people I met everywhere in clubs and shops and parties for the next few days who said, “ Oh, you must be the Aunt Daisy Basham I heard on Dunninger’s programme! Did he really read your mind?” Mr. Dunninger is also a clever conjuror, and before the programme goes on the air, he gives what he calls a “ half-hour’s warm up to the packed studio audience, with the neatest and slickest of card-tricks, and so on. Then his assistants pass round slips of paper and little pencils; and you are asked to write down some special thought and concentrate on it-per-haps your telephone number, or the ages of your children, or something in your hand-bag—or anything at all. The first time I saw this programme I was one of the ordinary audience; and was so thrilled by his clever tricks, especially by his taking a full glass of water out of a perfectly empty bag held by two servicemen who made sure it was empty, that I wrote on my paper, “Did you ever meet Malini? Wellington, New Zealand.” (Many of you will remember Malini, a fine conjuror who toured New Zealand some time after the last war.) Now the catch was that the papers on which we wrote were not collected! Dunninger passed round some envelopes, one to each row, and we put our papers in these and one of us kept the envelope- In my row, a young British sailor in uniform pocketed the envelope! Then we went on the air, Dunninger sitting at a desk on one side of the stage, and three “ judges ” seated at a table on the other side. After the usual preliminaries and the advertising “ spot,” the master mentalist began his mind-reading. The very first mind to be read was mine! I could hardly believe it when he began by saving.
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“ Now, I get the impression that a lady in the hall is wondering whether 1 have ever met Malini. I take it that Malini is a man in this same line of business. Well, no, I have not met him. The question comes from Wellington, New ORLEANS! Will the lady please stand up ?” Of course by this time my heart was beating in double quick, time, and I’m sure I was open-mouthed with astonishment. I rose to my feet and every eye was turned upon me, as Dunninger said, “Am I right?” 1 gasped out, “ Oh, yes—except not New Orleans.” “ Well, perhaps New Zealand,” said the master mentalist—and then, very sternly, “ Have you ever seen me before?” “ No, indeed,” said I—“ Thank you,” said he—and a sigh of delicious mystification rose from the audience, and was amplified over the air. Dunninger then went on to tell the written thoughts of about twenty other people in the audience. It was really a very cleverly put on show.
Two weeks later I was one of the three “ judges ” who sit on the stage to oversee the proceedings. On this occasion they gave me a good run by announcing who I was, and my reason for coming to America; and then later, after one of the “ judges,” a Canadian crooner, had crooned a song written by the third “ judge,” a newspaper columnist, the announcer asked me if we had in New Zealand any phenomena like Dunninger. To which I replied (according to arrangement) that although we had not such a master mentalist we had such phenomena as hot springs adjacent to cold rivers, so that one could catch a lusty trout in the river and flick it straight over on the line, into the hot spring to cook it! And glaciers gleaming among green bush and scarlet Rata flowers only seven hundred feet above sea-level; and a kiwi bird which does not fly, but whose eggs are bigger in proportion to its size than those of any other bird in the world, and so on. Very good fun and very good publicity. The advertising firm sent me a letter of thanks and a little silver pencil afterwards.
I was not allowed to receive any fees at all, in America. My trip was not commercialized. But each programme does cost money, and radio advertising is quite a business in the States. Dunninger had about six people on the stage—the three
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judges, the announcer, who runs the programme and does the advertising, the organist who accompanied the singer, and at least one assistant to take round the pencils and papers, and to run up to each person whose mind was read, with a little portable microphone. Besides these, there was a scriptwriter who drew up the programme, and who had interviewed me first; and then a big luncheon the same day at which we all met and talked things over. Then, there were the engineer and producer belonging to the Blue Network, running the technical side, from the glass-fronted producer’s room ; and the station’s own announcer who opens and closes the programme. The advertising firms have expert staffs and go to no end of trouble. For instance, there is the “ Aunt Jenny ” programme in which 1 was privileged to join—also in New York. This has been running for years—a series of dramatised real life stories, or episodes in the lives of Aunt Jenny and her husband Calvin, who live in a small town, and are typical of ordinary people—always an interesting kind of programme, in much the same style as “ One Man’s Family,” or “ The House of Peter McGregor.” The sponsor is the great firm of Lever Bros., and the product advertised is a very useful vegetable shortening which would be a real boon to housewives in New Zealand, if only the firm could be persuaded to make it here. Their advertising agents write and produce all their episodes—generally there are five or six characters. When 1 was to be used in the story, they sent a man to Washington to interview me, about a month beforehand. Then they wove round that a good little tale about Aunt Jenny having the Ladies Aid meeting in her house that day, and how Aunt Daisy was coming from New Zealand to talk to them—in fact, Calvin was down at the station meeting her that very moment. Then we arrived, Calvin and I, and met all the folks, and they asked me all about New Zealand, and the life there and everything, and f told them little anecdotes about the American boys who visited us, and about the 640 dollars they gave to the Wellington City Mission at Christmas, and so on. ft made a very natural and jolly broadcast; and afterwards among other teleohone calls, was one from a Wellington girl in Michigan,
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a war-bride, who’d only been away from home four months and who was so excited at hearing Aunt Daisy that she was crying and laughing both together. She said she was very happy and had a very fine husband; but hearing my voice had made her a bit homesick just for the time being!
More About Broadcasting
I did four interviews with men, besides several with womeninterviewers, which gave me a good bit of scope to talk of New Zealand from various aspects. The first was with Larry Smith, a commentator with a tremendous following, who speaks every day from K.P.O. San Francisco, and who was one of those chosen to be heard on the famous “ D-day ” round-the-clock broadcast which the N.B.C. carried out. On that occasion, the N.B.C. suspended all commercial programmes; and from 3.33 a.m. June 6th to 3.36 a.m. June 7th, it broadcast bulletins, and comments, and summings-up from all parts of the world, keeping the people in touch with every movement of the Allies, giving war-correspondents at observation points the opportunity of telling America what they were actually witnessing, as well as broadcasting King George, General Montgomery, and General de Gaulle from London. Between these bulletins and speeches, they gave what they called “ a swing-around-the-country,” to hear how the news of the invasion was being received by the American peoplevery interesting indeed. In Philadelphia at 7.15 a.m. the mayor rang the historic Liberty Bell in a special ceremony. From Hollywood, Ronald Colraan read Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “ Poem and Prayer for an Invading Army from St. Paul came the news that the blood-donor service had had a4O per cent, increase in volunteers that day; from Oklahoma that workers had been buying war bonds all day, and that there had been increased work in the factories; and Bob Hope gave a good speech from a fighter base in California. For relief, the orchestras and bands and glee clubs played and sang appropriate music; and always the American part was interrupted to swing over to the war bulletins as they came in.
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Larry Smith’s interview with me touched upon New Zealand s part in the war in the Pacific—our supplying of men, munitions, food-studs, and so on. Henry Schact, on the other hand, had a farm programme, and his interview with me was on the subject of New Zealand’s farms—sheep, dairy and fruit. Pete de Lima, an excellent commentator at K.F.I. Los Angeles, who served in the last war, drew me out on our war edort generally. Arthur Linklater conducted quite a diderent programme. It is called “Who’s Dancing To-night,” and takes place from the hotel St. Francis Drake, where a fashionable dance is held every week. Linklater’s programme consists of short interviews with people at the dance—though actually it has to be in a Separate room, and the people interviewed are not picked haphazard from the dancers, but are more or less notified beforehand—in order to get people with something of interest to say to the listeners. For instance, besides myself, with my tale of New Zealand, there was a warcorrespondent, one of the two who had been at the attack on Truk. He had a wonderful story. For lighter interviews, Linklater had a young service man and his bride in San Francisco on their honeymoon; and an old couple from a middle-west farm, taking their first holiday for twenty-three years. Linklater has a very charming and kindly presence, and a ready wit; his programme is always vital and interesting, and is immensely popular. I saw Linklater another day in a very different show—a “ barter programme.”
Through the window of the producer’s room, I saw a large studio theatre, filled mainly with women; and a stage with announcer, microphones, and numerous presents which the sponsor was giving away as prizes for various competitions, which are run in connection with the advertised products—such as groceries, embroidered blouses, or underwear, cheap tea-sets, and so on. Nearly everyone in the audience had brought what we would call a “ white-elephant,” either to sell or to exchange. Linklater, working very fast, went among the audience, a little portable microphone in his hand, picking on people here and there, and acting as a kind of auctioneer. For instance, his quick eye picked out a lady holding an electric
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iron—an article unprocurable at the moment in the States—as well as here at home. Very tactfully but very brightly, he got the lady to speak into the microphone, giving a few details about where she lived, and how she and her married daughter were now doubling up in one home, since the war, and how this iron could be spared as they were sharing the furnishings, and she knew that so many people would be very glad to get an iron. Linklater skilfully played up the information, asked the make of the iron, and whether it was in order, or had it burned out its element, and was it A.C. or D.C. or both. Finally he asked what she wanted for it, and whether the buyer could have a test, and then invited offers. Of course these were many; but after questioning several buyers, he decided to give it to a young lady whose husband was joining a ship, and who wanted an iron of his own to keep his clothes pressed and ironed—he got quite a lovely little story from this young lady, too—all very quick, the essential facts condensed and brought out by the clever questioning of this experienced radio man.
Another lady had a handbag to sell. In about a minute Linklater had drawn out the information that the lady had received the bag as a present last Christmas, that there was nothing the matter with it (as he showed by opening it, and inspecting it deftly), but that she had not used it much because it was an underarm bag, and she preferred one with a handle to go over her arm. Linklater made the obvious jokes about selling a gift, and the woman naively said the giver hadn’t a radio, so wouldn’t be listening, and if any neighbours were doing so, she trusted to them to have sense enough to keep quiet!—and she hadn’t given ner name and address anyway! Linklater is such a bright entertainer that the whole programme was most amusing and “ listenable.” Of course, such a barter programme would hardly do in a small community; but it has some points! The telephone was ringing all the time, too, with offers from listeners who wanted to buy a described article, or barter it for something else.
Another pleasant experience was a broadcast luncheon from
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the very lovely and famous “ sky room ” at the Mark Hopkins hotel in San Francisco. To me, this room is quite as charming as the rainbow room on the top of radio city in New York, although not nearly so high. But the idea is the same —a huge circular room on the top of the building, with fullsized windows all round it; tables of graduated sizes, comfortable chairs, softly shaded lamps, thick carpets, and big cushioned window-seats. The view is magnificent, and you see the whole harbour—the Golden Gate Bridge, the Oakland Bridge, as well as the quaint, hilly, irregular city. Of course, it is often cloudy and foggy, but my day was brilliantly clear, and we could see for miles—even the seals disporting themselves on seal rock outside the famous Cliff House hotel.
After a delicious luncheon, the broadcast began—interviewing two other guests besides me. One was the prima donna from an operatic company playing “ The New Moon ’’—and the other was an army lieutenant, a nurse on sick leave, who had flown back from Burma. Her story was a marvellous one. She described the amazing work done in field hospitals set up hastily, in clearings in the forest—just big tents, without proper floors, and it was generally pouring with rain. But the medical equipment and service were perfect, and the patients nearly always recovered, and were flown away in hospital planes. The climate, however, was bad, and the life very strenuous for the nurses. One nightmare was the monkeys—huge baboons which gathered in numbers and laid in wait, for the nurses to walk from their sleeping quarters to the mess-tent—quite a little distance away. The lieutenant said they had to go all together in a group, with soldiers keeping guard and shooting off a rifle or two to keep the monkeys at bay; for one “ hug ” from a baboon would have been the end of you!
Children’s Programmes
I seem to be writing a great deal about broadcasting—but of course, it is a most important subject from my point of view—and I think, from that of most people. Radio has such tremendous power; and we are always anxious to exchange ideas about it, and thus enrich our own radio work. As I said
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in the beginning, we can generally pick out something of value from other countries’ programmes; and either adapt it to our own tastes, or build something new from it.
America has quite a different plan from ours for children’s programmes. She has long since given up the conventional children’s hour; and they have taken polls and plebiscites, in their usual thorough manner, to find out what children really listen to. They find, for instance, that children do not like to listen to other children—except maybe, a local school concert on a local station. They produce children’s programmes as elaborately as any grown-up ones. I was allowed to sit in the studio for one production. There were two “ effects ” men working a water-tank with several different kinds of gurglings and churnings to represent a ship and a submarine, besides a walrus puffing and icebergs creaking and other sea noises. There was also an organist, who had to play little bits on a harpischord as well; and a trio of women who sang in harmony the neatly-written, illustrative rhymes to wellknown tunes, such as “ Wait for the Waggon,” which were introduced to break the dialogue. So interesting was the show, that although I had sat through the entire rehearsal, I was just as keenly interested in the performance which followed straight on.
It was a programme belonging to the series “The Land of the Lost,” which comes every Saturday morning at 11.30, and is listened to throughout the country by thousands of adults as well as children of all ages. I have seen letters from high school teachers as well as students, from parents, and from children of varying ages, congratulating the Blue Network on this series. The stories are written by a well-known storyteller, Isabel Manning Hewson, and are acted by an experienced group of players.
The N.B.C. and the Blue Network have conferred with members of radio councils, women’s clubs, parents’ associations and other interested in radio programmes for children, and as a consequence have now evolved an excellently balanced schedule for all ages, from pre-school or primary age, through the intermediate grades, right up to the ado-
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iescent. The “ Land of the Lost ” belongs to a “ comedyfantasy ” series, and deals with the adventures of two children, Isabel and Billy, who visit a fabulous “ land where lost things go at the bottom of the sea. The episode I saw dealt with the heat-wave we were enduring in New York, at the moment, and we visited the south pole to find the cause of the poor quality of icebergs which Willy the Walrus was delivering. It transpired that the refrigerating plant of the lady in charge was out of order and lacking in power through the extravagances of the northern manager who was using far too much for the aurora borealis! And quite a lot of interesting facts were included in this really fascinating comedy. The same characters run through each episode—King Find-all, Miss Spotty his “ finographer,” Willy the Walrus, and so on. Children are asked to write in describing any cherished article they have lost—a pocket knife, a doll, a tool, or what not; and to the writers of the seven best letters each week, is sent a new toy as much like the lost one as possible—from “ The Land of the Lost.”
Often before presenting this or any series, the Blue Network tries a typical programme out on their programme board; and then includes it in their “ sneak preview ” series on Sunday afternoons. Floods of mail came in about “ The Land of the Lost ” expressing delight at its charm and interest-value for all ages.
Then there is the Storyland Theatre, quite a unique programme, mainly for younger children, consisting of dramatized tables and folk-tales, with excellent, specially written music. Fables always point a good moral, and so are good stories for children. One programme was a dramatized Indian folktale called “ The Little Rabbit who wanted Red Wings another was based on a Chinese fable, “ The Little Boy Who Slept.” A first class orchestra plays the fine music written for each programme, and is conducted by the composer, Paul Croston, whose compositions are presented by such orchestras as the Boston Symphony and the N.B.C. Symphony, under such conductors as Toscanini and Stokowski.
“ The Blue Playhouse ” is another dramatic programme
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and is aimed at the junior high school and junior college age groups; but it attracts much older people, also. It has been found that young people are really interested in science and history, not only past but future. Through contact by mail, and through meetings with boys and girls and their teachers, it has been found that in the minds of the youth of to-day is an almost inexhaustible fountain of ideas, and this has helped tremendously in building acceptable programmes. Among the “ Blue Playhouse ” dramatizations are histories of America’s railways; of the automobiles; of radio; of electric power; of aviation. There have also been plays dealing with the life of Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, Jimmy Doolittle, and so on.
Another enormously popular session is taken every Saturday by Babe Ruth, the baseball hero. His programme is a studio-theatre one, and is attended by enthusiastic crowds of boys—and girls, too. He talks baseball, bringing in the necessity of team-work, sportsmanship, temperance, keeping fit, and so on.
CHAPTER V
TELEVISION
Television programmes are very interesting, and employ a great number of people. The scene being televised is surrounded by two or three big cameras on rubber wheeled platforms, and the operator perches uncomfortably on a seat which will wind up or down by means of a big handle. Of course the camera itself can also be turned in all directions. Each of these has a man pushing or pulling and guiding it as directed by the producer watching from the studio window above. The operators of the cameras, and of the microphones (which are on long movable “ arms ” so that they can be raised or lowered, or brought nearer or moved farther away), all wear headphones; and they work as the producer tells them through his microphone, which, of course, cannot be heard by the performers. The whole thing is worked like a movie studio; numerous cables and wires strew the floor and have to be lifted and moved and taken care of by several other workers, who all have various little jobs, and make queer signs to each other, and to the performers, all of whom understand this sign language, and who have also rehearsed the whole thing thoroughly beforehand, so that they know exactly the effect of every movement. Of course, the script of the whole show has been learnt by the performers—a televised programme must be memorised.
There are 5,000 television sets in New York alone, and a two-hour programme is provided every evening from N.8.C., C.8.5., or one of the other networks, f was given a “ television interview ”at the N.B.C.—in which I described our Waitomo Caves, especially the Glow-worm Grotto. On the same programme was a scene from “ La Boheme,” with professional artists and orchestras, beautifully done, f used to enjoy going to the C.B S. television studios on Friday evenings, from 8 o’clock to 10 o’clock. They are on the sixth
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door of the Grand Central Station. They used to allow me in the producer’s room. The producer and his assistants sit behind the long glass screen looking down at the show. He wears earphones, so hears as well as sees everything. Beside him sits his script girl, and on either side are three or four men with television sets who watch the programme as it appears to the setowners, as well as seeing it actually produced. It must be a nerve-racking job for the producer, who directs everything through his microphone. One of their programmes is a serial —“ The Court of Public Opinion.” The scene is a court-room, with the judge’s desk, the witness’s chair, and two tables, at which are seated the opposing counsels and their witnesses. As the scene opens, the cameras are wheeled through the double doors of the court-room—a bit of stage property, lifted into place by several stage-hands—and you see the robed judge enter the court and take his seat—the clerk orders all to rise, and the stenographer with his typewriter gets ready to type. One night the question before the court was, “ Should the Democrats or Republicans rule America.” You can imagine the liveliness of that debate. Each counsel opens his case, and calls his witnesses, who have to submit also to interrogation from the opposing counsel. Although prepared and rehearsed, much of these courtroom debates is spontaneous and always most amusing; some of the witnesses get very excited. There is no ban on controversial matter, and the counsel brought in such burning questions as the negro problem and national debt, and unemployment, and so on.
The producer has to be very alert, and is “ directing ” all the time through his mike to the camera men, light men and mikemen; saying “hold that witness—hold him all the way back—a little more light on right side—mike coming overhead and slow down a little—hold that with witness alone—take one—take two (referring to the number of the camera, I suppose) now keep that group—hold with judge—over to the inter-rogator-follow witness”; a very strenuous half-hour indeed for him. Other debates I heard were on “ Should the Government legalise national sweeps for patriotic funds”; and whether jazz music and dancing were demoralizing; and
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whether the State should take over all hospitals, and medicine, and doctors, and make them free to the public. All of these questions were debated with much vigour. One old chap, a railway worker, very stout, very hot in unaccustomed tie and collar and full suit with the temperature over 90°, argued that sweepstakes might just as well be legalized because chaps like him would always bet anyway, legal or not; that it was the only way a working man was ever likely to make a bit of money; that he got a bit of fun out of it without ever really expecting to win, and that the patriotic funds could use the money for the soldiers, etc., and look at the money that used to go out of the country in the Irish sweepstakes! In the hospital debate, one side brought up the argument of the dear old family doctor being done away with, while on the other side an aggressive workman said to look at the millions of people like him who never had the money to have a family doctor, anyway, and what would it mean to chaps like him to be able to have his wife or his child go to a specialist free of charge, and not wait until their trouble had developed into cancer or chronic illness of some kind. All very interesting, and quite perplexing to me-I always seem to see both sides of such questions, so ably presented by opposing sponsors.
Another interesting television programme is the series They Were There.” This is always an interview with a serviceman, back from the front—perhaps a war correspondent or a photographer, or a movie star who had been out there entertaining the boys—wonderful stories they could tell!
I used to love the news, too; the announcer sits at a table with his script before him, and reads to the audience, looking up at them from time to time, very naturally; while all around are large maps of the countries and seas and islands in the news-and cameras focus on Saipan or Cherbourg or Italy or Normandy, enlarging here and there, and a light pointer traverses the places mentioned.
'J here was always a half-hour of vaudeville programme, too—a clever woman impersonator did “ Hildegarde ” very well; and two lovely Chinese girls, one beautifully dressed in
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Chinese robes, gave a delightful show. Another time two handsome young negresses gave a delightful programme of solos and duets—beautiful rich voices they had, and sang with excellent taste. Their numbers were gay as well as grave, as when they sung about how “ you may call it this, you may call it that, you may dress it thus or this; but a chicken is only a bird!”
It is expected that television will be greatly expanded after the war, and will be used very largely in education. Even as long ago as 1938, when I was in London, I saw an excellent lesson in the grafting of different kinds of rose bushes given by television. During this war they have used television in New York in the N.B.C.’s air raid wardens’ lecture course, showing English made films which explained the mechanism of explosive types of incendiary bombs; and how to extinguish lethal shells, and so on. In eighty-two New York police stations there were television sets installed, and more than 250,000 wardens attended these lectures.
CHAPTER VI
AMERICAN TRAINS
Ihe comfort of American trains is well known. It is a real rest to travel by them—generally the only rest that anyone on a short, purposeful trip such as mine, can allow himself (or herself). The only difference in war-time is (i) the difficulty of getting a reservation, (g) the difficulty of getting something to eat. Our New Zealand office in San Francisco undei took to get me as lar as Washington, but even with their influence, the tickets and reservations still had not come through by Friday afternoon, although I was scheduled to leave on Sunday morning; and the office had had such difficulty that they had begun to think they would have to send me up into Canada, and across that way. However, on the Saturday morning everything came to hand, and I started off by the luxury train for Los Angeles-the “ Daylight.”
They manage the luggage excellently. Having paid off your taxi, the chief red-cap takes charge of everything; he asks to see your ticket, on which is the name of your car, and the number of the seat; and you just walk away leaving your all in his care! If you want to keep one or two smaller cases with you, another red-cap will pick them up and take you and them down the long, long platform and put you into your seat; but generally the crowds of travellers are so great that you just make off by yourself. I never could help feeling nervous about the fate of my luggage; but in due time a red-cap with a huge piled up trolley always arrives, and nothing seems to get lost; although when you are changing trains, and going from one platform to another up and down ramps and staircases, and sometimes, as at Chicago, even from one railway station to another, when you have to look out for the special taxis marked “ Parmalee it is very nerve-wrack-ing; but the thing is really simplified because each porter with his trolley is alloted to a certain carriage—or perhaps two to
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each; so that your luggage must be on one of those trolleys, and cannot possibly get mixed with that of the rest of the travellers on the huge train.
That first stage of my journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles was just all pleasure. The parlour car, in which the big cushioned arm-chairs revolve at will, in order that one may enjoy the scenery through the large windows, is airconditioned: and a nicely subdued radio programme plays—but not the whole time. This was Sunday, and “ Mothers’ Day,” very pleasant choirs sung, and orchestras played; later in the dav we had the inimitable Charlie McCarthy.
Even the dining car was not so terribly crowded—most people had had breakfast, and we were to reach Los Angeles before dinner; so that one meal sufficed. The weather was beautiful; the country for the most part was very pretty, especially when we got back to the coastline, 113 miles of it, during the afternoon, and came to the pretty old Spanish missions, and the palm trees; and the foamy breakers at the little town of “ Surf,” the lighthouse at Point Conception, and the green fields and fruit trees of the San Fernando valley. The new railway station at Los Angeles is most up-to-date and comfortable, light and roomy—it cost eleven million dollar? to build, anyway—and has plenty of concourses and restaurants and courtyards where you can rest on rustic seats under shady trees—a real California atmosphere, quite different from the business-like crowds at Chicago and New York.
We had to wait a good while for our luggage to catch us up at the taxi platform, where the transport question is all straightened out for you. Uniformed officials every few yards question the section of the crowd immediately beside them, sort them out according to the direction in which they want to go, whistle up the taxis, which are dashing in all the time as they return from their last fare, and you sooner or later get packed in, bag and baggage, with as many others as the car will hold; and off you go, dropping passengers as you pass the various hotels, etc. This goes on all day and every daycrowds and still more crowds all the time; and yet they are stopping so many people from travelling now! Of course.
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there were squads of servicemen in every kind of uniform marching on or off all the platforms all the time, either going or coming. And everybody is friendly and talkative—even confidential—laughing at difficulties—very cheerful. It is impossible not to feel exhilarated.
My next train journey was to Washington. It was thought best, for various reasons, that I should go straight through; and come back to Chicago later on, and also down to New Orleans. However, as things turned out, I could not get back to either of these places; nor could I return to California, where I had been invited to speak at clubs in San Francisco and San Diego. It developed that my only way of returning home was from New York, and the sailing was so uncertain that I had to “ stand-by ” and not risk going far away. However, I may be able to visit these places as well as many others, if I accept a lecture-tour which has been offered me, a little later on. They are very interested in my going over again, to talk about New Zealand not only at the many women’s clubs, but also at colleges. It might be good publicity for New Zealand, too. We shall see.
I left Los Angeles at six-thirty one evening in a huge silent train, called the “ Golden State.” The route arranged for me is not considered the most interesting, but one had to be grateful for any way at all, and to me, everything was new and fascinating. I had a roomette to myself—a wonderful comfort. It has a little wardrobe, a little cupboard or locker, a comfortable arm-chair, a tip-up washbasin, and a full-length mirror in the door. There was an electric fan with a threespeed switch; and of course, electric light. The negro porter was efficient and very polite; most obliging in filling my thermos with boiling water; so that I always had my early cup of tea as usual, for I never travel without a packet of tea and a little tin of biscuits! I had the porter make up my bed very early that first night; for my three and a half weeks in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Hollywood had been so crowded and so full of interest that my mind was one confused jumble of memories of Beverley Hills, Kaiser shipyards, broadcasting with different personalities in different ways to
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suit their programmes, Pasadena and its (lowers, the Golden Gate Park, the Grace Cathedral, children’s nurseries, the colourful and fascinating Farmers’ Market, the Hollywood Bowl, luncheon at the Brown Derby, meeting Lionel Barrymore, watching John Charles Thomas run his beautiful concert show, watching Ronald Column and Loretta Young and Edna Best do “ Blythe Spirit,” Stage Door Canteen, being photographed with Red Skelton and with Ginny Simms, recording my forty-five half-hour morning sessions for New Zealand in a rush to catch the shipping—in short, my head was in a whirl! So after an hour of looking out of the window at hayfields, and at green barley fields, at poultry farms, and herds of cows, at great fields of flowers (which looked to me like nemesias), at poplars and willows, and also, strangely enough, many eucalyptus trees, besides fields of lucerne and cabbages and onions; and watching the big red sun set in a rosy haze behind softly rounded hills, I rang the bell for the porter. The last thing I saw before I settled down for the night was a huge lighted Cross which slowly revolved above an old mission church; and miles of beautifully kept orchards—some citrus ones, with the “ smudge-pots ” we read about—not a weed anywhere, all freshly raked earth between the rows of trees.
Still Travelling
I woke up early next morning, much refreshed by the long quiet night, drank my thermos tea, and prepared to enjoy a lazy day. The train ran quite smoothly and silently; I had the comfortable roomette to myself (a tremendous boon!) and plenty of magazines to read. Actually, the time went very quickly, because although only two meals per day were served in the dining car, it took so long queueing up for a place, and so long for all to be served when one did get in, that by the time one got back to one’s own room after the first meal, it was nearly time to line up for the second. Everybody bought fruit at wayside stations, however, and you could buy cartons of milk in the dining-car and bring them back with you. The meals served were excellent, and I still miss
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the American cooking; the fruit juice, with which every meal begins, orange, or grapefruit or tomato, all fresh in the summer and expertly canned for winter; the fruit-cocktails, with bits of peaches, orange, cantaloupe, avocado pear, a strawberry or two, or blackberries in season, all freshly cut up and the glass set in a mound of ice; the creamed vegetables; the vegetable plate with dainty helpings of green peas, runner beans, fresh navy beans, French fried onions or potatoes, hot beetroot, corn—all carefully steamed and buttered, and arranged in the separate divisions of the plate, with perhaps a serving of creamed chicken or turkey, or a poached egg on toast, or on minced beef or veal in the centre division. Then there is always ham, thick slices of grilled or baked ham; and lots of e gg s > boiled, poached or Iried; and the inevitable lamb chops, beautifully grilled and juicy; thick steaks; and for dessert, every kind of pie (or tart as we should say, being made in a deep plate), pumpkin, apple, blueberry, lemon, butterscotch, apple—huge wedges of pie. And of course, ice-cream. Everybody has apple pie and ice-cream together, on the same plate. They took me in to see the busy, compact kitchens on the dining cars, very complete they are, and of course they’ve become expert at managing in the small space. The coffee is always wonderful.
We passed through a lot of desert country that first day, with low bushes and scrub, and a very weird-looking cactus. Plenty of dust, there was, too. About mid-day we got to Tucson (pronounced “Too-sohn” with the accent on the second syllable), and stayed for about twenty minutes. Everybody got out for a walk, and one realized what crowds of people there were on the train. We crossed over various sets of railway lines and bought oranges and post-cards and box lunches, and soft drinks at the station stalls—sent telegrams and posted letters and bought magazines and chatted with each other—at least two ladies have my address, and are expecting me to come back and address their country clubs on “ Life in New Zealand.” There is a big district round Tucson, which itself rather reminded me of Westport or Greymouth without the sea. It was extremelv hot there, and
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we were quite glad to get back into our cool, air-conditioned train. Soon the country got more and more hilly and stony and rocky. We had very few stops—one, at a place called Bisbee Junction, might have been for Mexico—there were references to Mexico on notice boards. Then desert again, with queer, tall red cactus flowers, without any leaves or green of any sort. I had turkey for dinner, at 6.45. At ten p.m. we reached El Paso, and stayed half an hour; but I had retired to my comfortable bed by that time.
Next morning, May 26th, I had breakfast on the station at Tucumcari—orange-juice, bacon and eggs and fried potatoes and coffee and toast and marmalade. It made a change from the dining-car, besides being cheaper and much quicker. The queue for the diner would stretch down two whole carriages, and it was not unusual to stand for about two hours waiting. You see, each batch would take about half an hour to eat and if four carfulls got in ahead of you, well, there you were! We used to clap and cheer the ones who passed back on their way to their carriages, and make some fun out of it. There seemed to be only one diner and it was in the middle of the train. Some diners are very long indeed, with eight to ten tables each side. Sometimes the tables on one side hold four people, and those on the other side only two; sometimes they all hold four. I suppose one can reckon sixty to eighty people dining or breakfasting at once. On this second day the country was quite similar to New Zealand—could have been parts of Hawkes Bay, with its poplars and willows; small towns, with one-storey houses and shops with verandas; cows and calves and horses in the fields, and often a paddock or two under water; here and there a big fine homestead—a very flat country on the whole. At 6 p.m. we came to Larrabee where there are big grain elevators like at Vancouver. Late that night we reached Kansas city—too late to see anything but just a big station. I promised myself to come back to Kansas some day.
The next morning at 11.30 we reached Chicago, where there was the ordeal of changing trains and going from one station to another, as I have already said. A special taxi-service looks after this, and you are told to look out for the “ Parmalee ”
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man. However, it all smooths itself out, and I was fortunate in getting red-caps. There are plenty of restaurants in all the stations (all crowded, of course) so that you can get a meal of sorts; and plenty of lunch counters and ice-cream bars and orange drink booths, and so on—all crowded! But I had nearly four hours to wait, so there was no hurry. It didn’t seem safe to risk going into the city, especially as I expected to be coming back to stay awhile; and there is always so much interest in watching the crowds at a big station. Booking your belongings at the left luggage counter is a very slow job indeed—the crowds around it are always enormous, because there are so many different trains coming in all the time from all directions. And getting your luggage out again in time to catch your train is another fearful job, and you need to begin a long time before, or you won’t get it out before your train goes, perhaps from some platform quite a long distance away! 1 overheard red-caps hustling the baggage attendants, saying they had to get three or four lots of baggage out and on to a train several platforms away in just four minutes. For those who have only a few packages or an overcoat to leave while they go for a walk, there are blocks of lockers provided on the station. They are worked with a padlock and a slot-coin, very convenient indeed. I saw many servicemen, often with their wives and babies, leave overcoats and parcels in one of these, lock them up and trot away with only the baby to carry. Then it is very quick to come back and pick up the coat at train time.
I had another comfortable roomette on the new train; thanks to the careful booking of our New Zealand office; and the fourth and last night of this journey passed pleasantly enough. On Sunday morning. May 28th, I got into Washington, at about a quarter to nine.
CHAPTER VII
WASHINGTON
One of the brightest highlights of my tour is my stay in Washington. Even in my schooldays, it seemed to me a place of glamour; and stories of Martha Washington and Mount Vernon and Abraham Lincoln, and so on, made favourite reading. So that I was expecting to be charmed, and was not disappointed. Everything was even more beautiful than I had pictured, and everybody was kind and apparently determined to give me a happy time.
It was a bright sunny morning, already very hot at 8.30, when I stepped out of the train, and immediately found my hand being shaken and a friendly voice saying “ Welcome to Washington—l’m Roger Hawthorne from the New Zealand Legation.” From that moment until I left thirteen days later, I was “ taken care of,” as the Americans put it, and the very most made of every hour. Mr. Hawthorne is our information officer, and also organizes our publicity. This is assuming very large proportions—schools and colleges, libraries, Scout groups and clubs from all over the States now write into this departfor all kinds of New Zealand information and films, to help them in essays and lectures. They want to know everything about us, and our country, including our various postage stamps, and any special issues of these. I saw files containing newspaper paragraphs presenting an item of news perhaps of some exploit of a New Zealand soldier or airman with a little photograph, copied by hundreds of newspapers scattered all over the States, and inserted free of charge to us! We certainly are “ on the map ” now, and stories of New Zealand are always read and listened to. I knew a little about Mr. Hawthorne already—he came to New Zealand with Admiral Byrd’s expedition, and is a friend of our own Bryan O’Brien. He took me to see his special “ Emperor ” Penguins at the zoo next day. They are the first of their kind to be success-
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fully kept in any collection of animals ; and as Mr. Hawthorne helped to capture them, and carried them on his back to the camp—no easy task, because the slippery creatures kept on sliding to the ground and having to be re-packed-he takes quite a fatherly interest in them.
1 he Zoological Park in Washington is a very lovely place (the park is as much a feature as the zoo) and our luncheon there, on the wide cool veranda of the big restaurant, was very good indeed. This restaurant is a very popular luncheon resort, not only because of its excellent food, but also because of its shady and cool situation, surrounded by smooth lawns and spreading trees, for if Washington has a fault it is the stifling heat. But every street is an avenue of enormous old trees in double rows meeting overhead; and the sunlight filters through the leaves, making a dappled pattern on the roadways, and on the old-fashioned big houses, with flights of wide front steps and big porches on which the people sit in rocking chairs at the close of the day, trying to catch any faint breeze there may be after the sweltering heat. Most of these old mansions seem now to be let as apartments; and with the big bay windows as wide open as they will go, you can see the nobly-proportioned old rooms, and weave imaginary stories about the original owners. I was fortunate enough to be shown over one very lovely old house, Number 1734 n Street, now the headquarters of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. I went there to call upon the president, Mrs. Dickenson, and to take greetings from the executive of our New Zealand Women’s Institutes. The house is either three or four storeyed; and the beautiful old reception rooms, library, drawing-rooms and bedrooms are now all used for committees and as offices; for Mrs. Dickenson has the direction of twenty million women, in various clubs of all kinds, all very keen on their different projects and studies—chiefly connected with war-work just now, of course. There is at least one group training in languages and in nutrition and diet, ready to go to the liberated areas in Europe and help with the children. Mrs. Dickenson has her own lovely home a short train-journey away; but her presidential duties are so many that she lives mainly at the
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club during her years o£ office; her family is grown up and her husband, who is himself immersed in war-work, is pleased and proud that his wife is doing such useful work. She is tall and of a charming appearance, very gracious and poised; and was interested in all 1 could tell her of our New Zealand women’s clubs. 1 was fortunate in finding her in Washington, for she is continually travelling about to important conferences. It was Saturday noon, and the large staff of typists and secretaries had a half-holiday; so Mrs. Dickenson showed me over the house herself, and then took great delight in giving me luncheon at the famous Iron Gate Inn behind the house.
Handsome high gates of wrought-iron open into this old narrow cobbled drive-way, and you could visualise the old family carriage being driven in by the liveried coachman, and fancy the clop-clop of the horses’ feet on the round cobblestones. The roomy stables have been converted into the restaurant—without too much conversion, so that the character of the old place is preserved. The “ stalls ” are now separate dining alcoves; but the hay racks still occupy their corners, and polished lanterns adorn the posts of the partitions between them. Bridles and carriage whips and horseshoes decorate the walls; and electric lights disguised as lanterns hang from the beams of the rather low roof. At the side a staircase leads up to the loft, now used as a dining-room. The middle of the floor accommodates about twenty tables; the cooking and service are of the very best; and the place, though in a neighbourhood of the most “select ” and quiet type, is sufficiently close to the business district to have a very big clientele. It must be a great boon to those who know it, for it really is almost an impossibility to get a meal in Washington anywhere after 11 o’clock in the morning. I have looked into many of the restaurants and cafetaria at all sorts of times, and not only are the tables all full, but even the seats round the rooms are filled with waiting crowds, as well as the roped-off standing space. As for lunch-bars, they have always three and four people standing waiting behind each stool; and more people coming in all the time. One day, after visiting the New Zealand group of women at their Red Cross work of mak-
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ing and packing emergency kits for ship-wrecked seamen, I went with the wife of our First Secretary to do a little shopping. Having had a very rush luncheon of salad and ice-cream at an adjacent drug store—all there was time for, if their quota was to be finished on time—the lady and I agreed that we could do no shopping till we had had a cup of tea; and we betook ourselves up to the top floor of the excellent drapery store, to the cafetaria. It was an absolutely stifling day, but the store was air-conditioned and we looked forward to enjoying our inspection of the splendid shop, with the most attractive displays of neck-wear and costume-jewellery, and the new hair-ornaments of dainty ribbons and flowers in lovely orchid shades, attached to big combs; and “bicycle clip hats of soft small feathers like a dove’s wing with a dainty posy at each ear—all kinds of novelties and notions. But first—a cup of tea! Alas, when we reached the top floor, we found three queues formed at the entrance to the cafe, one queue for single shoppers, one for couples, and the other for three or more! However, we joined in with the couples, and when we did get to a table, the tea and cake were both excellent. However, I just want to stress the Washington crowds. People say the war has spoilt the city; that such ci'owds are abnormal. But great provision seems to have been made for them. There are really magnificent blocks of apartment houses—very large, expensive and fashionable flats, with courtyards and gardens and garages and swimming-pools and every possible comfort, including meal-service. And the hotels are simply like palaces, with ballrooms and banquet-rooms, luncheon and dining rooms, suites de luxe and parks and terraces and, of course, swimming pools. We went to luncheon in one of these fashionable hotels—in which they say it costs a dollar a minute to live—and afterwards enjoyed wandering round its drawing rooms and lounges, and terraces, and looking into its jewellers’ shop and gown shop and novelty shop and so on. These big hotels always have branch post and cable offices; you really need not go out for anything.
I did two broadcasts in Washington, both on women’s programmes. The first was at the N.B.C. in the middle of the
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day; and that same afternoon I was invited to tea with Mrs. Roosevelt.
This was a very great occasion for me, of course; I dressed in my best bib and tucker, and my good friend Roger Hawthorne drove me to the White House. (Mr. Hawthorne took care of all my appointments, entertainments, interviews and pleasures; and if anyone ever obeyed the Bible injunction about going the second mile, it is he.)
The big doors stood wide open, at the head of the wide steps of the White House; and there were two or three elderly men-servants standing about, in the large, pillared hall. They signalled to an official who seemed to be a secretary, for he took my card of invitation, and had me shown into a reception room opening on to a wide terrace overlooking a garden. Soon after, a lady and gentleman were also shown in; and then another gentleman with two ladies. In true American style, these people all introduced themselves, and we all chatted away very happily for a few minutes when the secretary came in and asked us all upstairs. He ushered us then into a very large and comfortable drawing room, homely and nice and informal. Mrs. Roosevelt came forward to greet us in the friendliest manner, as our names were announced, and introduced us to two other people who were already there. She was dressed in a soft silky navy-blue dress; and seated herself behind the tea-table while we were grouped in a circle round her, in a very cosy manner indeed. Everybody seemed to know each other and chatted about mutual friends; but Mrs. Roosevelt kept me beside her, and asked me about New Zealand, and spoke of many places she had enjoyed visiting in our country, and of how grateful she had always felt for the informality and spontaneous friendliness of her reception everywhere while she was with us. I was so glad to be able to tell her that the American nurses on the ship in which I travelled across had all said what a great “ lift ” they had got out of her visit. They said that they had all expected to just stand in the background while Mrs. Roosevelt went round the wards, for she spoke to every man separately, and her time was very short. But she broke away and came over to the
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nurses and shook hands with each and said a few words to them also; and the girls appreciated that very much. Mrs. Roosevelt said she d had no idea that the nurses felt that way, and seemed so pleased to hear it. When we all rose to go, she asked me if I would like to come to her press conference next morning. Of course 1 jumped at the chance, and Mrs. Roosevelt said, “ Then f won’t say good-bye, but will look forward to seeing you to-morrow.” One of her daughters had joined us at the tea in response to a request from one of the ladies, who had been at school with her.
\ou can imagine how much I looked forward to being at the press conference next day. I think I have already told you that it turned out to be “ D-day,” June 6th. Once again Mr. Hawthorne drove me to the White House; and, as before, I was the first to arrive, and was shown into the same reception room. Soon the press representatives began to arrive—all womcn-about twenty-five or thirty, 1 should think. We went upstairs all together to a plainly furnished little room, and sat in rows facing a big chesterfield. Soon Mrs. Roosevelt and her secretary, an efficient and very pleasant lady, entered the room. Mrs. Roosevelt shook hands with each press-woman, and when she came to me said, “ Oh, ladies, I hope you have all met Mrs. Basham from New Zealand,” and shook hands very cordially and hoped I’d be interested, and so on. Then she sat down, and the women all began asking questions—about the invasion and about her summer plans and engagements to speak at many towns on subjects of importance to the welfare of women and children, and so on. I thought the press-women rather abrupt and apt to be too pressing on points about which Mrs. Roosevelt preferred not to speak—but I was assured that the American press works that way and feels that it is part of its traditional and cherished freedom. Everything was very cordial anyhow.
I am often asked whether it was not very wonderful to be in Washington on the long-awaited “ D-day but unless one were in the inner circle of the Embassies or the Government, it wouldn’t make any difference where one happened to be. The ordinary people in Washington didn’t know any more
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WASHINGTON
than the ordinary people anywhere else; just as Londoners didn’t know any more than folks in Yorkshire or Edinburgh.
The newspapers were the same everywhere, and the radio kept people right up to the minute. The N.B.C. actually cancelled all its commercial programmes; and for twenty-four hours from 3.33 a.m. on June 6th reported the story of the invasion almost minute by minute, from their own microphones at vantage points in London, and along the English coast, at various “ listening posts ” all over Europe, and from strategic news-centres in the United States. General Eisenhower’s famous “ Order of the Day,” and reports from the flagship of the Invasion fleet; speeches by King Haakon VII of Norway, and from the Premier of the Netherland Government in exile, from London; speeches by King George and General de Gaulle; a story from the N.B.C. correspondent Wright Bryan, the hrst radio-man to return to England with an eye-witness report of the invasion, and describing the dropping of the first load of paratroopers, and of his return trip over the Channel—exciting stories like these were listened to all day long by the American people. Summaries were given from time to time by the best-known commentators; and, in between came reports from various cities like Chicago, Denver, Cleveland, Toledo, Cincinnati, Memphis, Hollywood, describing the peoples reaction—the increased enrolments for blood-donations, the buying of war bonds, etc.
For musical interlude, bands and orchestras played stirring music, and choral groups as well as fine soloists sang inspiring folk-tunes and religious songs. Radio certainly took D-day seriously in the States, and fulfilled its obligations.
I had a quick look at many of Washington’s interesting and lovely places, but one would need months to see them all properly. One, hot, but lovely day, I was taken to the historical Mount Vernon. On Sundays there is a boat excursion to it, up the river Potomac—a very popular service indeed; but I motored along the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, which mostly runs along beside the river, about fifteen miles, through the lovely Virginia countryside.
It starts from the Arlington Memorial Bridge, with its
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famous “ water gate,” where they hold the grand outdoor symphony concerts. It is so terribly hot in Washington that every amusement which attracts large numbers of people is held out of doors if possible; and symphony concerts are immensely popular all over America. In New York they are held on summer evenings in Central Park—and are always thronged with people. People of every class seem to understand and love symphony concerts, probably because these are available everywhere; and schools and colleges listen to them, and study the music with their own orchestras, thus forming a circle of listeners and performers, young and old. It is a great mistake to think that Americans like only jazz. You have to book far ahead to get a seat at any symphony concert —and young players are being trained all the time, everywhere. Guest conductors are exchanged, too, so that players get experience with European and English musicians. Music is a big thing in America, and the great crowds of listeners are largely players, too, even if many are indifferent ones, so that the audience is always keenly interested, because it more or less understands what it is listening to.
The Arlington Bridge leads to the Arlington National Cemetery where is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier—only they express it better there. They say—“ Here lies an American soldier, known only to God.” It is guarded always by a sentry, and is placed on a paved terrace at the head of a broad flight of granite steps. Beside it is the great Arlington Memorial Amphitheatre—a memorial to the army, navy and marine corps killed in the first World War—a beautiful white marble building, open to the sky, with seats for more than 4,000 people. There is a big pavilion at each end, with a museum and a chapel, and so on. All great national memorial services are held here.
Mount Vernon is very interesting, of course. It had been allowed to fall gradually into disrepair, after Martha Washington’s death in 1802; but in 1858 was formed a Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association; and this devoted body of Virginian women have gradually re-established the old furnishings, the gardens and farm-lands, and brought back original
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pieces of furniture which had been distributed among relations, or sold. So that now the mansion stands very much as of old, and its charm is wonderful. Wall-papers have been copied and restored, curtains and the four-poster bed hangings and quilts and valances all re-duplicated—Mrs. Washington’s darning basket stands on the table beside her wingchair in her sitting room, just as though she would soon be home and at work; and in the General’s library you may see his name written on the title page of his books, and a globe in a stand, and even his spectacles. In the music room is the very lovely old harpsichord, with its two keyboards; and an old flute and a guitar; several music-books used by the family; old-fashioned cut-glass “ lustres,” and ornaments; an ornate clock on the mantel-piece, and a big wall-mirror in a carved frame.
The detached kitchen I found specially interesting, too. It is typical of those old Southern homes, and the food had to be carried quite a long way to the dining-room in the main building, under a curved colonnade, roofed but open at the sides. The cook and her helpers slept upstairs, over the kitchen and sculleries and pantry. It was a very big, and comparatively cool kitchen, with large windows, and a great open fireplace with cauldrons hanging by chains over it; and pots and pans and bowls on the tables and shelves; and a brick “ bread-oven ” built in one side. It was in this detached kitchen that Roger Hawthorne came very close to our Queen Elizabeth, during the Royal visit to America in 1939; Roger, who was then working with the press, had paused in one of these rooms for a moment to mop his brow and get a breathing space, for the sun was blazing and the heat terrific, and the carrying out of all the ceremonies connected with the King and Queen most exacting. To his confusion, he saw the Queen in the kitchen! She, too, had escaped for a moment! Almost before he realized it, however, various officials were surrounding him, and numerous gentlemen and ladies had joined the Queen. Phew! thought Roger.
I must not give any more pages to Washington—though I would like to do so. I loved it all, the lovely buildings.
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especially the Capitol, standing on a natural rise, with its beautiful dome, topped by the Statue of Freedom—the first thing I saw when I came out of the railway station (another fine building) on that hot Sunday morning of my arrival. Ihe indefatigable Roger Hawthorne took me all over the Capitol, showed me the great staircases and corridors, the tiled and mosaic floors, the hundreds of pieces of sculpture and many fine paintings, and, of course, the great rotunda—which is the immense circular hall underneath the dome. A wonderful frieze of stone figures, life-size, runs all round the walls, showing scenes in the history of the United States. On the ceiling is painted, in beautiful colours, more pictures of historic scenes. The first president to lie in state in the great rotunda was Abraham Lincoln; and since then, every president who has died in office has been given this honour.
I was also given a ride on the “ underground railway ” of the Capitol; it is a single-rail affair, and leads from the Capitol to the wing occupied by what we should call the “ upper house so that these gentlemen do not have to walk outside to get to their offices. 1 believe members of the other chamber have often applied to have a similar one installed on their own side; but so far the first-mentioned are the only ones so privileged.
The Lincoln Memorial
I should think this is the most beautiful and most inspiring monument in the world; and I cannot leave Washington without telling you abort it. ft is like a stately temple; and stands at the top of a magnificent flight of steps, very, vevv wide and shallow—easy to mount. In the front of the great Memorial Hall are thirty-six tall fluted columns, which represent the thirty-six States over which Lincoln presided; for the fortyeight States of to-day had not then all joined the Union. As you rest under this colonnade, you look away over at the Washington Monument, a plain, tapering obelisk of white marble, over 550 feet high, very noble-looking. Between you and it is the Reflecting Pool, a very long straight narrow sheet of water, with a paved walk each side; in it, as its name
Aunt Daisy broadcasting in San Francisco two hours after landing
Rehearsing for the television appearance
Luncheon after the launching of a Victory Ship
In the Skyroom of the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco
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indicates, the Washington Monument is reflected. All around you are drives and parkways radiating in all directions; for the Memorial is in a park, and is itself encircled by a wide driveway.
When you enter the Memorial itself you reach the climax of all you have already enjoyed. You get an effect of three halls, for great lonic columns on each side of the lovely Lincoln statue divide it.
The president is seated in a great armchair, over twelve feet high. The statue itself is nineteen feet high; and over the back of the chair is a draped flag. The modelling is perfect. Abraham Lincoln comes to life as you look at him. He is no longer someone in a history book. You really meet him. He is leaning forward a little, as if looking through between the noble columns—perhaps at Washington Monument—or perhaps further off, at the future of his great country. Some daylight comes in from the outside, and this is supplemented and softened by a glow diffused through the marble ceiling. Lincoln’s arms are resting on the sides of his chair; every fold and crease in his clothes are reproduced so naturally and his whole pose is so full of life that one gets the impression that the great president is just resting, is still alive, and still guiding and watching over his people. On the wall at his left is inscribed one of his famous addresses. Mr. Walter Nash and I read it together. Almost every word could be applied to the affairs of today. Truly truth never changes. On the opposite wall you may read the Gettysburg Address. I hope it may be my good fortune to visit the Lincoln Memorial again.
I saw more negroes at Washington than anywhere else. Some streets quite near to the Hotel Roosevelt, where I was staying, seemed to be occupied entirely by them. They seemed quite happy and easy going, and always very polite. The wee children were quite enchanting, dressed in clean starched frocks, and often with their woolly hair very tightly plaited into two or three stiff short tails, tied up with big bows of coloured ribbon. Their fathers often take them pridefully to the corner drugstore for an ice-cream. The children never seem to cry or to be naughty. In the evening, the whole family c
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would sit in brightly striped canvas chairs out on the front porch, or in the narrow strip of garden in front. I never saw any untidy coloured people—l used to wonder, both here and in New York, how every girl and woman managed to have always a fresh, clean cotton frock on. There must be plenty of laundries available to them—although it was a slow business sending out one’s own clothes to the wash. In Washington, the houses in which the coloured people lived were evidently the former homes of very well-to-do people—large old-fash-ioned houses of three and four storeys, big bay windows and high ceilings, and a flight of steps leading up to a dignified front door with a fanlight over it, and a big brass or black knocker. I suppose the original owners had gradually moved out to suburbs; and the coloured folk used the houses as flats or “ rooms.” These streets, like nearly all others in Washington, were shaded by magnificent old trees which met overhead; and big buses rushed silently by every few minutes.
I used to scout around by myself in the evenings after a day spent in broadcasting, or in learning something, or seeing something. Once I went into one of the negro restaurants for dinner. It was quite early—about 6.30; and so fairly empty; and I had delicious fried chicken and corn and peas, and hot “ bread ”; and ice-cream and of course, good coffee. I suppose it might have been noisier later on; but it was quite nice when I was there; and I felt rather adventurous, but found everything very calm indeed. Of course, one waits while the chicken is freshly fried—no cooking in advance and keeping hot.
CHAPTER Vi II
A GLIMPSE OF CANADA
I had felt I could hardly bear to leave Washington and all the people there, who had made my stay so interesting and even exciting; but Time was marching on—and on a Friday evening, a lovely lady and her husband, a captain in the Marines, gave me dinner at their home and then drove me to the railway station—a very handsome building with an imposing approach, all in keeping with the general dignity of Washington. Even to the last moment I was able to gather interesting stories and information, for this captain’s work in peacetime is a specialized branch of photography, both aerial and other, and he had done much particular work in the Phillippines, about the future of which he is enthusiastic. I learnt from him that the population is larger than that of Canada—about eighteen million; that it is the only Oriental Christian nation, and ninety per cent. Roman Catholic; and that the only common speech is English; There are many different dialects and languages, but when a collective conference is called, the only speech understood by everyone is English!
He told me, too, that it had progressed greatly, especially in education, during the last forty-odd years, and that this general improvement was really built upon the little country school-house, with its one teacher, where all the grades were taught in the one room—and that such little school-houses were to be found in every part of the great scattered country. I thought how like that was to the many little schools all over our own country districts—in Auckland and Taranaki, in Westland and Canterbury—where thousands of sturdy New Zealanders studied the “ three R’s ” in the early days, and from whose ranks came the resourceful, unbeatable Diggers of the last war, and the Kiwis of this; and I realized afresh how true it is that the more we find out about other nations, the more points of contact we discover, and the more friendliness we
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establish. As travel becomes cheaper and easier and almost universal—as we hope and expect it will do in the future—this spirit of understanding and consequent co-operation will surely spread throughout the world; and, as the United States Minister to New Zealand said a little while ago, “ co-operation means progress; and is the natural enemy of aggression.” Thus it will become possible for the Lion to lie down with the Lamb!
As in my journey across from Los Angeles to Washington, I was again fortunate in getting a single bedroom-car in the train, which took me to Buffalo, on the border of Canada, where we arrived at eight o’clock next morning. At this great railway station I went through my usual panic at seeing my luggage disappear on a porter’s truck in one direction, while I made my way through corridors and up ramps, and down flights of stairs to the specified track where 1 was to find my train.
This time my porter really did cut things pretty fine, too; and up to about one minute of starting off in the new train I saw no sign of my bags. There were no reserved seats, and the carriages were rushed by the crowds—which as usual included many servicemen. Two very polite Norwegian airmen tried to soothe my agitation, as everybody else’s luggage but mine came trundling down the platform. With only one minute to go, I climbed down from the high carriage to the platform and tried to get a little comfort from an elderly train-man—l suppose a kind of despatch-clerk. He was very unhurried and calm, and asked me many questions about New Zealand, and so on! And the more agitated I became, the calmer he was, advising me how to manage porters in the future. Just as the train began to puff and snort itself up to the pitch of actually starting, and as I wavered between getting on without the luggage or missing my friends who were to meet me at Toronto, the porter appeared, loudly explaining all the set-backs he had overcome in getting there at all, and in such a manner that I felt I really had done him an injury, and tipped him double what he should have had, in my relief-
Breakfast was announced as ready in the diner; but no
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one was allowed to go in until the passport inspector and the customs officer came through the carriage; so we all opened our suitcases in readiness, and tried not to notice the lovely smell of coffee. These officials were really very quick, and everything soon settled down quite happily. At Toronto station there were plenty of porters and no difficulties at all. My friends were there to meet me, and we were soon in another train heading for Guelph, where practically all the executive of the great firm of Beatty Bros, were awaiting me, with the warmest of welcomes. They had thousands of questions to ask about all their friends in New Zealand generally, and Wellington in particular.
Guelph is a very fine shopping town; and from there we drove to Fergus, where the principal Beatty factories are. It is really a model little town—everybody seems to “ get along there seems no poverty, for the great factories, now engaged almost entirely in war-work, support the whole community, either directly or indirectly. The countryside is beautiful, and the town itself, which has always been an inland one, now" rejoices in a huge lake, made through the construction of some new water scheme; and so the whole population, young and old, have sail boats and row boats, and even houseboats on the lake, and endless fun in the long summer evenings and holidays. Fergus prides itself on the fact that practically every child can swim well, for the big swimming bath, built by the Beatty's, and run by an enthusiastic and gifted instructor, is almost the chief centre of interest as soon as winter is over. Even children of five years old can swim the whole length, and dive and stunt, and do life-saving-they all have badges for this and that, and seem to be almost amphibious. No wonder they welcome the new lake. There is also an excellent high school in Fergus. I was invited to give a talk to the students, who all showed a keen interest in New Zealand, and had already learned much about our way of living, etc. Canada is just as interested in us as are the United States. Of course our New Zealand airmen have been great and good ambassadors for us, and have given Canadians a very rosy picture of our country.
AUNT DAISY AND UNCLE SAM
7°
There are great numbers of women workers in the Beatty factories; and a highlight for me—and 1 hope, for them—was my being invited to go among them and see them at their jobs and talk to them. They were most interesting people indeed, all well-educated girls with a wide outlook. It was a real honour to New Zealand that 1 was given a full half-hour one afternoon to address these women workers in the big assembly hall. 1 did appreciate the privilege, and gave them as spirited a talk as I could, on our women’s war-work and our winter sports and thermal regions and summer resorts at the Sounds and the beaches and the rivers, as well as the story that always aroused enormous interest—the Waitomo Caves and especially the glow-worm grotto.
Church-life in Fergus is very vital, and united; and the majority of the young people are absorbed in its various social activities. As on my previous visit, I stayed at the beautiful home of Mrs. M. J. Beatty, who always accompanied her husband in his frequent visits to New Zealand, and made many friends here. The sudden death of “ M.J.” a few years ago has left a tremendous gap. His personality and energy vitalized not only the great firm, which looms large in all parts of the Empire (I saw their surprising display at the Glasgow Exhibition in 1938), but also the civic progress of Fergus and other places where Beatty Bros, operate.
In Toronto I had only a few hours—a pity, but all that my itinerary could allow. It is a great and important centre, and I hope to re-visit it some day. Radio work is particularly important in Toronto; and it was a listener there who noted my talk from the Ottawa radio station, and advised the Association of Women Broadcasters in New York to get in touch with me—and, through me, with New Zealand radio.
From Toronto I went on, by night train, to Ottawa, the capital, a lovely city, and full of interest. Though our train was over an hour late in arriving, Mr. Middlemiss, from our High Commissioner’s Office, who met me, was unruffled and delightfully cordial in his welcome-quite an achievement, surely, for a man who has waited about on a chilly railway station since six in the morning without his breakfast, for
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a woman whom he has only seen once before—about ten years ago, in Fiji! But Mr. Middlemiss is like that; he just ploughs a straight furrow cheerfully enough through all the varied secretarial jobs of his office, quite unperturbed; he even filled in for me, a very detailed document sent me by the Department of Justice in Washington, whose duty it was to make sure that 1 was not putting over any harmful propaganda.
My reservation was at the Lord Elgin Hotel—very large and comfortable, though without the charm of the beautiful old Chateau Laurier, one of Ottawa’s show places. It looks like a medieval castle, with lots of round towers and pointed turrets, and with the copper roofs so frequently seen in big buildings in Ottawa and Quebec, and which are spectacular because they have turned a bright greenish colour with exposure to the weather. The Chateau has everything, both inside and out, and quite equals the most luxurious American hotel. Besides its suites, large and small, it has many lounges and drawing rooms and charming nooks for small parties, with palms and ferns grouped here and there, and bowls of flowers and an atmosphere of intimacy and quiet comfort. I had a “ hair-do ” at one of its beauty parlours—as at all those big hotels, you can buy practically anything you like in the way of luxury—jewellery, souvenirs like real Indian beaded moccasins, and Canadian rugs and jackets; and wonderful furs; and there are masseuses and chiropodists, and manicurists; branches of banks and a post office and cable service—valets and maids—everything.
Just as our Legation looked after me in Washington, so our High Commissioner’s Office looked after me in Ottawa. Mr. Firth, our acting High Commissioner, and his most attractive and active wife, arranged for me to see as much as possible of Ottawa’s war-work and those who are organizing it, during the five days I spent there. At an afternoon party at their home I met several New Zealanders as well as Canadians -Group-Captain White and his wife, and Mrs. Tasker (nee Marjorie Vause of a hard-working Wellington camp concert party), now very active in the blood donor clinic; and Mrs.
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Peebles, an old Christchurch girl, who works very hard for the war work of the Girl Scouts, as well as with the Women’s National Council.
1 did a very successful broadcast at C.8.0., a most interesting radio station, of which I would have liked to see much more.
In Ottawa, the Red Cross is the inspiration for a great many different groups of workers. Two really amazing enterprises, organized by the Ottawa Women’s Canadian Club, are making very large regular donations to it. Mrs. Firth, very brisk and business like in Red Cross uniform, took me to see both these at work.
The first was the Capitol Tea Room, which sounds ordinary enough, but is really quite extraordinary, as you will see. The club started this project as a tea-room in, 1 believe, 1941. Ottawa hadn’t nearly enough restaurants for the crowds of war-time workers round the city, who need a comforting snack in the morning or afternoon. Here was an opportunity for an active committee to get going, and raise money for the Red Cross. But it was not easy to find a suitable location. There wasn’t an empty shop, or even an upstairs floor, to be had. Besides, the club wanted to minimize expenses. So they went to the manager of a picture theatre in the centre of the busiest part of the city—the Capitol. It has a fine big foyer, from the centre of which a broad flight of stairs leads up to a wide circular balcony, with ornamental railings. Around this balcony people promenade during the intermission, or sit on lounges, talking and smoking and eating chocolates, in the usual way; and big doors open off from it into the dress circle.
The club committee asked permission to use this balcony as a tea-room. The manager was very willing, but pointed out the difficulties. There was no kitchen, no water-tap except those in the ladies’ dressing room, no place for a stove; and besides, everything would have to be cleared away and the whole balcony, etc., left immaculate for the evening performance. There was no chance of using any place next door as an auxiliary kitchen, or anything. “ Leave it to us,” said
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the Ottawa women, and thanked the manager for giving them a free hand. They set to work. They converted a telephone booth into a kitchen by setting in a shelf with a three-plate electric stove, and here they boiled kettles and cooked hardboiled eggs, and later on, as the fame of the place spread and they had to get lunches as well as teas, they boiled big saucepans of soup.
They allowed few expenses. They brought in folding cardtables and set them up each morning in the balcony; they somehow got hold of comfortable fold-up chairs. They provided pretty table-cloths; the garden circle sent fresh flowers every day for the tables; they specialized in engagement teas and birthday and anniversary parties, with lighted candles and special lace tablecloths. Soon they were serving four and five hundred meals a day, and people were glad to sit on the stairs with a tray on their laps, when all the tables were full. The food was all “ home-made,” the club members and their daughters did all the serving; the Capitol tea rooms became the rage.
But just “ peep behind the scenes ” and consider the sustained effort of the different groups of ladies who take their turn, year in, year out. There is a voluntary staff of twentyseven to thirty-five women every day. It is true they have now had another corner partitioned off to make a small kitchen, which holds an electric stove, a refrigerator and a cupboard or two. In this a certificated dietician cooks, planning for one or two days ahead. Only soup, tea and coffee are served hot and, if I remember rightly, mashed potatoes in winter. But large, boned and stuffed legs of veal, hams, and tongues are baked ready for cold slices to be served with salad. A corridor has its floor covered over with canvas, a trestle table put up, and on this I saw lettuces and celery, tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs and so on, all being made into salad plates. A tiny broom-cupboard was being used by four very cheerful women as a scullery. They had put up two tables, on each of which was a big bowl of hot water (carried a long way from the kettles in the telephone booth!), and two washed dishes while the other two dried them. Of course, the
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ladies have worked out a “ technique ” by this time, and each team of workers excels in the big job of providing, serving, setting up the tables attractively, keeping its accounts, and clearing everything away before leaving each afternoon. To my comments on the difficulties they had to overcome they only replied, “ Well, we have lots of fun.” Members who cannot join in the work send donations of money or of cooking—one lady made one hundred dollars’ worth of fudge last year! and others come and "read the tea-cups.” A firm often sends in ginger ale. Anyhow, the club cleared 20,000 dollars from March, 1943, to March, 1944—a very worth while sum, you will agree, to spend in helping prisoners of war and Red Cross funds generally, as well as many necessitous cases among the dependants of the men who are away fighting.
The Superfluity Shop
The second great job organized by the Ottawa Women’s Canadian Club is the Superfluity Shop. It is run entirely by women, on strict business lines. Since it opened in 1940 its receipts have been 74,853 dollars, and its expenses only 8,703. The profits g° to th e Red Cross. It isn’t anything like a rummage shop, or a white elephant shop. It is good business. When Mrs. Firth and 1 went to see it, we first looked in the window, as one does on going to most shops. It was most artistically dressed in scarlet and white—frocks, hats, belts, gloves, bags and all accessories—not jumbled in an amateur manner, but most attractively displayed. In fact, Mrs. Firth bought a narrow scarlet and white belt right away —had been looking for just such a thing everywhere. The window dressing committee are enthusiastic specialists and change the display every week. In the spring, one feature was a tree with a rabbit perched up in a branch with his legs crossed; and they said that sweet rabbit was simply rushed, and had to be replaced at least ten times a day. In the winter, they feature other home-made animals, and a “ ski doll window ” created a real sensation—wonderful dolls made by a lady, and perfect little skis made by a husband. Another
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lady makes beautiful pottery flowers—which are unique, and take a great deal of time and patience; still another collects stamps and sells them in the shop. Nearly 900 dollars were taken last year from the jewellery section alone—where old jewellery donated is repaired, cuff-links made into ear-rings, pearls restrung, old-fashioned brooches made into links or something else—lovely things are to be picked up in the jewellery section.
Certain ladies have studied and specialized in restoring old prints, repairing picture frames, as well as re-framing. Often good old etchings and prints and sketches are sent in from old estates, or even by dealers—and all are made as new, and easily sold. The hand-made dolls and toys sent in by one lady alone realized a thousand dollars—there were 591 articles! Books form another important department. Good collections are sometimes sent in, or are acquired piecemeal—often books which are out of print in war time; and these are carefully mended and attractively covered, and easily sold. They are properly classified, as in a library—no picking over by the customer out of a heap of odd volumes to see what is there.
But I suppose the clothing is the main source of income. Clever women specialize in “ making over ” outmoded dresses and in re-trimming the millinery. Not all these things are sent in second hand. Often a big store will send in a crate or two of hats at the end of the season; and sometimes a firm goes out of business and sends its “ superfluity ” to the shop. Once a general store sent in some “ ancient vintage.” The collection contained “ hour-glass corsets,” and Gibson girl outfits, from jaunty sailor-hats down to button-up shoes with very pointed toes—all sorts of things from the “ Gay Nineties.” The window dressing committee at once seized on these, and the crowds just about stopped the traffic! The whole collection was eventually disposed of at a profit. As I said, all the workers are voluntary—l 99 of them. There were nine more, but these have had to become inactive, though interested, members. They all work in shifts, with a supervisor on each shift.
There is a trained committee, who appraise the goods
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sent in, and allot them to the various specialists. Glass and silver of value get expert valuation. When the mending, etc., is done, a fair price is put on the articles, and is never altered to suit any special customer. Just once a week, on market day, they will have a bargain bin, with everything twenty-five cents, and these things are eagerly pounced on by some of the poorer people. If any really shabby things are sent in, they are sent to the social services to make use of. There is a basement where out of season goods are stored. The committee of markers are critical, but are so accustomed to fine donations by this time, that amusing incidents sometimes happen. Just before I was there, a maid sent three beautifully tailored suits, belonging to her lady’s husband, to the shop instead of to the cleaners. She was accustomed to send her mistress’ clothes there after only a few wearings, and the mistake was easily made. But the marker just picked them up, looked them over with a critical eye, and remarked, “ Not bad, when they are pressed!”
The Superfluity Shop cleared 26,000 dollars last year—a very good voluntary effort, don’t you think?
The Ottawa War Memorial is a wonderful conception. It stands in a commanding position, from which wide streets radiate, and I never got sufficiently used to it to pass it without walking across the wide-paved court which surrounds it, and mounting some of its shallow steps to look more closely into it.
It is a great high, white stone (or perhaps marble) archway, very deep, surmounted by three figures, one of which holds aloft the torch of Freedom. Nobody could tell me exactly what the three figures represented. But through the archway march representatives of every unit of the Canadian army who served in the last war—not spick and span as if Just starting forth, but travel-stained and worn, clothes creased and mud-caked, men straining hard pushing guns on wheels, others bent over with heavy loads on their backs, horses with heads reined tightly as their riders strive to keep them from stumbling—and oh, the grim and weary, but determined faces of the men! They are more than life-size, and the bronze is
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discoloured by the years, adding to their battle-stained appearance. Some are already through the archway, some are just entering it. They wear heavy top-coats and boots to the knees, and they are so alive that you feel abashed at staring into their scarred faces, for fear they will turn and ask you what you have done towards removing the causes of war. Every night this war memorial is flood-lighted, from below; and then the men look more alive still. It is much more than just a group of statuary.
The Parliamentary Buildings have a dignified and oldfashioned look. They spread out on the top of a low hill, and have wide gravelled paths round them, and some trees. The library is really beautiful—a big Gothic building, with lots of quaint doors and pointed windows, and drawing up to the pointed tower with a spire.
Senator Wilson (the first woman senator in Canada) showed me over inside, which is different from anything I had ever seen. It is circular, and has three balconies, one above the other—very beautiful. It is divided by projections into seven divisions representing the seven provinces of the Dominion; and the wooden parquetry floor is a delight to the eye. Senator Wilson has now another woman senator to keep her in countenance; and there are two women in the Commons. The women of Canada are taking an ever-increasing interest in their Government—indeed several telegrams from rural districts on some urgent matter came to the senator while I was with her.
The Peace Tower is on the opposite side of the buildings, and in it is the carillon, the sister of our own Wellington War Memorial Carillon. Very beautiful indeed is the memorial room, with the shrine in the centre and the carved frieze round the walls and the inscriptions to all the different companies. I went through that on Sunday afternoon, June 18th; and in the evening 1 heard a wonderful broadcast by Leonard Brockington, describing the invasion as he had watched it from a destroyer. He had just flown back to Ottawa.
I must hasten on now to tell you about my little visit to Quebec. I spent my last evening in Ottawa at the Firth’s,
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meeting a very interesting English Major, the Controller of the Household for the Earl of Athlone and Princess Alice. All the busy officials like to spend an informal evening relaxing and chatting in the friendly home of the Firths.
Montreal
I left Ottawa by morning train, and came to Montreal about lunch-time. Mrs. Beatty had accompanied me from Fergus and the Beatty firm in Montreal gave us a comprehensive run round this beautiful Canadian city during the few hours I had to spare, before getting the evening train to Quebec.
Montreal had several new sights for me. I could hardly believe my eyes when we crossed the road from the station, and saw a long row of “ open carriages,” waiting for hiresome with a pair of horses, and some with only one, beautifully groomed, with shining harness; and the carriages complete with linen dust-rugs, and polished silver carriage-lamps and hoods thrown back. A one-horse carriage is called a caleche. I was to see these again at Quebec, where they are made quite a feature of in the quaint old city—a keeping-up of old custom. The coachmen wear top-hats, and flick the sleek horses with long carriage-whips, and you slip right back to Victorian days. In Central Park, New York, there are a few old hansom-cabs, and some of these carriages, too, as a
special feature; but there, during the heat-wave, the coachmen shed their old-fashioned dignified appearance, and removed their coats and collars; and looked very, very funny, though practical, sitting on the “ box ” dressed in top-hat, sleeveless singlet, and well creased dark trousers!
The first thing in Montreal was lunch. We went to the best restaurant and stood in one of the four long queues in a foyer outside the dining-room for over half an hour! It is the same everywhere in Canada and the States in war-time —every eating place is packed with waiting crowds—extra hundreds are working at all sorts of work, and have to be fed with only half or quarter the usual number of waitresses to serve them. This foyer was upstairs and the whole of one side consisted of windows and window seats, looking over a
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very fine view. But you didn’t risk your place in the queue to look out—that had to wait till after lunch!—which was excellent.
Then we drove up a hill to see the huge new Catholic University; it has a special hospital wing with fifty beds, for the students taking medical degrees to work in. The view here, as from all the hills round Montreal, is superb; in the distance, the St. Lawrence river, studded with islands, and beyond, the Laurentian hills; and nearer at hand the city with its parks and trees, its residential districts with mansions of brick or stone, surrounded by well-kept grounds. We drove up another hill to the “ Look-out,” from which one sees ranges, canals, the huge harbour and wharves; and at least three big and graceful bridges. On a clear day can be seen the great lakes (Superior, Huron, Erie and Ontario) —all navigable by means of a system of locks. A wonderful country.
We drove through Westmont Boulevard, the most exclusive residential district; and to a lovely suburb called Mount Royal, only nine minutes from the city, through a tunnel and right out in the country, with tennis and bowls and all sports—fine residences and many huge luxurious apartment houses, with garages and roof-gardens and everything.
Montreal is full of churches, chiefly Roman Catholic, and quite beautiful. Most famous is the magnificent Notre Dame; I could have spent hours studying its beauties instead of the few minutes which were all we could spare. The carving on the very high wooden reredos is almost beyond description* so beautiful, so mellow with age, depicting scenes from the life of the Saviour.
The whole curved chancel, with a richly-coloured painting behind the altar, is incomparable. There are two galleries running round the whole church, and the high pulpit is reached by a quaint spiral staircase of polished wood. A great contrast to this magnificence is the simple, small Sailors’ Church down by the docks. It is dimly lighted, by swinging lamps, and from the ceiling hang lots of little model wooden ships, dedicated by the wives and children of the sailors whose lives depend on their seaworthiness. In both the big Notre
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Dame and the little Sailors’ Church were kneeling many of those “ ordinary people,” who do derive comfort and strength from a few minutes snatched from the noisy struggling, worrying work of the day and spent among those beautiful surroundings, remembering that “ God is their hope and strength—a very present help in trouble.”
We also saw the famous McGill University, a lovely place with fine gardens; and drove through several streets of twoor three-storeyed houses with outside staircases! These are, I think, all French-Canadian houses, and quite a special and unusual sight.
Then it was time to get into the train for Quebec. I think it took about five or six hours. I had a good reservation in a parlor car; and a nice meal of bacon and eggs in the diner. Exactly at midnight I arrived in Quebec.
Quebec
Quebec was to be a holiday for me—five days of just sightseeing, and roaming round, finding out quaint and delightful and historic places, but no broadcasting and no recording. One needs to be alone sometimes, just to get “ recharged ” as it were. But, of course, like the proverbial busman on holiday, the first place I went to was the Radio Station C.B.V. It is housed in the historic and charming hotel, the Chateau Frontenac, and though a small station, taking chiefly the big national chain programmes, yet it does have a few local ones, and a capable staff, under Maurice Valiquette. They are often able to get very interesting interviews from guests who stay at the Chateau; and approached me about one; but we decided that as I’d done a very comprehensive and popular talk from Ottawa only a few days previously, I’d defer another until my next visit to Quebec.
The local programmes from C.B.V. are all in French—the language of the majority of the people. French-Canadians form ninety per cent, of the population; the newspapers are printed in both French and English; and many of the people speak only French. I saw one programme which I found unique and particularly charming, by a young couple called
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Colette and Roland. They sang a group of the lightest and brightest French “ Chansons ” —very quick, and dainty, and saucy—apparently questions and answers, and witty repartee, to judge from the delighted nods and gasps and chuckles of the listeners present (I couldn’t follow it myself, of course) and the piano accompaniment was also a duet arranged by themselves; so that they sat side by side at the piano, accompanying themselves with very light, crisp-running music, and singing in the easy-flowing, appropriate style. Maurice Valiquette told me the programme was the only one of its kind, and was all the time gaining in popularity. He told me lots of stories about overseas visitors to the Chateau who had come in to C.B.V.
The Chateau Frontenac has a charm all its own. It really hardly feels like a hotel—more like a beautiful castle at which you are one of a big house party. It stands on a hill like an old, wide-spreading feudal castle—seventeen storeys high; has manv towers with pointed roofs—and all the roofing is of copper which has weathered into the light greenish colour, most attractive—that I mentioned seeing in Ottawa. It looks right over the city below, both Upper and Lower Quebec; and you can see the big white ferry boats leaving the wharves and bustling off up the River St. Laurence—a very pretty sight too, especially in the cool evenings, when these pleasure trips are well patronized; and the band plays in the rotunda on the wide, boarded terrace bordering the Chateau. This terrace is a favourite promenade—paved in wood, provided with lots of seats and with rounded “ look-outs” from which you get a superb view. People walk along as far as the for-bidding-looking old fort, with its thick stone walls and mounted guns. The Chateau’s coffee-shop opens on to this terrace, so that other people can easily go in for a snack as well as the guests of the hotel. Of course there are the main dining rooms and banquet rooms, and private dining rooms, in the Chateau; but the coffee-shop is cheaper and very good, and especially useful if one is alone. It has deep big windows, looking on to the terrace, and tables for two, or for bigger parties, and lots of ferns and flowers and hanging baskets of
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trailing greenery—a charming place. It is a floor below the main foyer, because you drive on up the hill to get to the chateau entrance under a big archway.
Besides the coffee shop, there are barbers’ shops and ladies’ beauty parlors, and the ski and toboggan room and a branch of the Bank of Montreal and other shops downstairs, along endless corridors of white stone. On the real entrance-floor you come first to the reception desk, where you book in for one of the 5,724 bedrooms or suites, large or small, but all with private bathroom and a “ clothes closet ” like a small room. There are three cashier windows, at which to pay your account; one for rooms from one to 1,000; one from 2,000 to 2,500; and the other onwards to 5,274. From the left stretch a series of long, thickly-carpeted lounges, divided up into many bays and nooks furnished with chesterfields and easy chairs and tables, for parties; and at right angles another long lounge leads off, with rich blue carpet on the floor and more nooks, and recessed shops for books and fancy goods and furs, and hand-woven woollen clothing and Indian work of silver and leather; and a C.P.R. picture-display or panorama of the scenic beauties of Canada—very lovely indeed; and of course a post office and cable office, and a chemist’s shop.
At the end of this lounge you come to a series of drawingrooms, with tall rounded windows looking over the terrace and the city and the river—a wonderful view, either by day or by night. Afternoon-tea is served in one of these, and the lovely chateau orchestra plays for you. Further on is a tremendous ball room. The orchestra is a real speciality—quite small, only two violins, a cello, and a piano, but each player is a real artist, and they dress as befits an old French chateau -the two men in curled wigs tied with a bow; satin breeches; wide-skirted velvet coats, ruffles of lace at wrists and neck, silk stockings and buckled shoes; the ladies wear powdered hair, long panniered dresses, very decollete, with graceful lace berthas and short sleeves—dainty shoes peeping out from under their skirts. They have played together for a long time and are entirely in sympathy—all enthusiasts. They have a fine repertoire—l heard them play Mozart and Mendelssohn
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as well as Manon and La Boheme. They were most interested to hear from me about iNew Zealand. Outside the handsome main dining hall is a large furnished foyer or lounge, with elaborately arranged flowers and palms and ferns; and here the orchestra plays during dinner every night, to a large audience which always gathers there, as well as to the people dining inside.
One day I went for a sight-seeing tour of Quebec on the queerest-looking special tramcar—painted bright red, and with double seats rising one behind the other like a gallery, and no roof or sides, ft felt like riding round the city in a circus waggon. One man drove the tram and another stood behind him with a megaphone, and told us all about everything as we passed along, ft was really great fun.
Lots of the streets are so narrow that sometimes the tramtracks are at one side instead of in the middle. We started from the square just down in front of the chateau, where there is a monument and a fountain. Quebec is full of monuments —Wolfe and Montcalm and many other historic people are commemorated everywhere; there are archways or “gates” called after St. Jean and St. Louis; and the Kent Gate built in 1871. Churches are very numerous too—l think they told me forty-two Catholic churches in Quebec, but whether they meant the city or the province I’m not sure. Some of the shops and houses in the oldest parts have the second storey built outwards and overhanging; one was marked 1534.
In one part. Upper Quebec is connected with lower by a stairway and an elevator (reminding me of Wanganui). There are shoe factories and a grain elevator and paper pulp mills; and a very good shopping centre. We got into a traffic jam at this centre—very amusing it was-at the evening rushhour. There seemed to be no set crossings, and motor cars dashed along on both sides of us in both directions, all very fast, tearing in front of and right across each other; a tremendous lorry was stationary in one narrow place with no sign of its driver; and this ought to have held up everything, but didn't! We, in our high circus car, had a fine view of everything around and beneath; and the noise was inde-
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scribable—nobody really angry, but everybody shrieking out directions to everybody else, women’s voices included, all in French; drivers and pedestrians all gesticulating and shouting, every motor car and van tooting its horn wildly; some horse-drawn vehicles driving straight through the crowds of people coming out of the C.P.R. railway station—how nobody got hurt I can’t think. And then the driver of the stationary lorry suddenly appeared, very calm and unhurried, and started her up! In a few minutes everything was normal again. People said that often happened; they all enjoy the excitement.
Talking of horse-drawn vehicles, the “ caleche ” is quite a feature in Quebec. Every morning at about 9 o’clock, these charming old-world carriages drive up and take up their stand under the big shady trees of the square below the chateau—very complete, with well-groomed docile horses which seem to know the whole game, and toss their heads and champ their bits, so as to look dashing when likely-looking tourists pass by; the coachmen in correct dress and top-hat; the car-riage-lamps mounted in silver and brilliantly polished; the dust-robe draped over the back of the caleche, the wheels of which are picked out in red or yellow, to match the dustrobe. One horse had red harness. They really are most picturesque. You meet them driving sightseers round Battle Park—a lovely place with trees and great grassy slopes and rounded look-outs with railing and seats, whence you have a great view of the river and Wolfe’s Cove. Our King and Queen came up the Cove in the Renown when they visited Quebec in 1938.
I was driven around this park by Mrs. Carrington, M.8.E., the wife of the Archbishop of Quebec. The Carringtons are grand people; the family is well-known in Christchurch. The late Dean Carrington was the father of this Archbishop, who did a great deal of work for Boy Scouts and youth generally in Christchurch, after a brilliant career at Cambridge, and before he went as warden to the Theological College at Adelaide, and subsequently to be Bishop of Quebec. I spent Sunday afternoon at Bishopthorpe; Mrs. Carrington keeps
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open house for New Zealanders, and two or three of our Air Force were there for the week-end.
I was fortunate in seeing the big traditional parade for the festival of St. Jean Baptiste, the day after I arrived in Quebec. It was a public holiday; and after high mass at all the churches in the morning, there was this long pageant in the afternoon—companies of every group of French-Canadian troops and clubs and schools, all in traditional costumes and uniforms, which had very evidently seen many years of service —scarlet and blue, and brown, and orange, and white—and mixtures of all colours—sabres and guns and bicycles, and floats with “ set pieces ” showing hospital wards and Catholic homes with happy families grouped thereon, and flags bearing slogans, mostly in French—a tremendous affair; it took about two and a half hours to pass. One group of schoolboys were all in white suits with long trousers and long white capes, and white caps; several brass bands were sandwiched in—none very good. In the evening, the big band played on the rotunda and our terrace was crowded with people, and the ferryboats, full of pleasure-makers, paddled up and down the river. It was a great festival.
Of course, I went to the famous Shrine of St. Anne du Beaupres. It is one of the “ conducted tours ” for visitors, and literally hundreds go every day. A large party of women from the Middle West of the U.S.A. were in our train—school teachers and small-town workers on their annual holiday, a kind of Cook’s tour, some old, some young, all very eager and very talkative, enjoying everything and missing nothing. It was like reading an American novel to listen to their comments as we passed through the countryside, in the special electric train which takes the excursionists to St. Anne du Beaupres—generally twice every day, I think. “ My land, just look at that woodpile (as we passed a little farm-house). “ 7 hey don’t mean to freeze this winter, anyhow.”
A guide with a megaphone comes through the carriages and expounds the scenery as we pass; the timber-mill with three miles of “ flume,” as the wooden chute feeding it with pulp is called; the Montmorency cotton-mills, where 4,000
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people work; the rather poor little towns whose houses have those outside staircases, like we saw in Montreal; and where the people hang their washing across the street to dry, on lines which work with a pulley, so that they can stand on their balcony and peg out the clothes, pulling the line along as it gets full. It takes about an hour to get to Beaupres, and there we were handed over to a lay brother from the church, who meets the pilgrim-trains. Ours was Brother Bruno, a very jovial person, looking exactly like the monks in the picture “ Tomorrow will be Friday.”
He led us first to the little old chapel of St. Anne du Beaupres, built in 1658 by some shipwrecked sailors, in thanksgiving. It has a quaint hand-carved altar, and many sacred associations. Hundreds of crutches and sticks left by pilgrims healed at the shrine are kept here. Near by is a steep, grassclad hill, which has been made into a Calvary. A winding path leads up the “ green hill without the city wall ’’—and the Stations of the Cross are represented, almost too realistically, by life-size bronze figures. We were not taken to the top to see the three crosses of the Crucifixion. I suppose that privilege is rightly reserved for pilgrims, and not for a mixed and noisy company of sight-seers, like ours.
We passed a big church, and went next to a kind of museum, wherein are the “ treasures of the Basilica,” in glass cases—beautiful chalices of silver, besides gold ornaments and watches and other valuables given as thank-offerings for healing at the Shrine of St. Anne. Here, also, were lovely little Catholic tokens which could be bought as souvenirs—little crosses of silver and ebony and ivory; lovely rosaries; good prints of the Holy Family and the Madonna and Child; and so on. Nearly everybody bought something.
Then we went through the crypt into the great new St. Anne’s which is not yet finished building, but which is very large and ornate, with a mosaic ceiling, and magnificent high altar, carved in marble, very fine indeed. I think Brother Bruno said all the mosaic work was imported from France. There are thirteen side-chapels on each side of the main shrine, which will hold 10.000 people. Many wonderful
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stories are told of the healing of sick, and blind, and crippled people at the Shrine of St. Anne du Beaupres.
Still another noteworthy visit is to be paid at BeaupresNot far from the shrine is a very large circular building—a private enterprise this one, not belonging to the church. A notice describes it as a “ Cyclorama of Jerusalem on the Day of the Crucifixion.” You enter by a lobby and a flight of stairs, and find yourself on a large platform or gallery in the centre of a great circular chamber, dimly lighted. Immediately below you is built in, of plaster and stones, and sand, a foreground to the great painting which covers the whole circumference of the chamber—a painting 360 feet long. It is a picture of the Holy City, very carefully detailed, very true; it shows all the great buildings—the Palace of Pilate, the Temple, and the High Priest’s house. You can see the Mount of Olives, the walls of the city, the green hill of Calvary, and the three occupied Crosses; the soldiers grouped around them, and the women. The perspective is marvellous —the picture is alive. It took four years to paint. It is thirtyfive feet from the gallery to the painting, which distance is just right for the effect. On the built-in foreground are modelled tombs and a well with a woman drawing water from it; the patched tents of nomads, brown and faded red; and lepers, in lonely groups, apart. The whole thing is a wonderful conception, wonderfully carried out; very sobering. Our party was far less noisy as we climbed back into the train.
On the way back to Quebec we stopped to see the Montmorency falls, which spill down 274 feet in quite pretty surroundings—though not breathtaking to a New Zealander accustomed to our many beautiful falls. But it was an experience to be pulled up to the top of a cliff in a two-stage elevator! The party had to divide up, for the “ cages ” hold only about twelve or fourteen each. At the top is the old Kent House, built for the summer residence of the Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria’s father. His other house is in Quebec, not very far from the Chateau Frontenac; and one of the City Gates is called Kent Gate. We got back to the Chateau before luncheon was over. A very emotional morning.
CHAPTER IX
BOSTON
Boston is one of the beautiful American cities—beautiful in its layout—its tree-bordered streets, its dignified old mansions, its old business houses, its modern and handsome business and shopping districts—such wonderful shops for clothes, and hats and furs, and novelties in neckwear, and blouses—and such shoes!
Boston is very crowded and rushing now, in war-time. They say it is like Washington in being put “ out of character ” by the war, because it has been always thought of as a quiet university city and a centre of culture. I suppose the great, busy shipyards have helped towards this change of atmosphere. I remember it took about two hours to get a red-cap porter when 1 arrived at the station en route from Quebec! There were porters at the platform to take our handbags, etc., but for the checked luggage, which was not available for some time after we got in, it took all that time to find a man to carry it out to my hostess’ car.
1 was to stay at the home of Major Merrill Moore, a noted psychiatrist who is affectionately remembered by many New Zealand women who helped as Grey Ladies in the American hospitals in Auckland and Wellington. He had made me promise to visit his home, and give news of him to his wife and four most interesting children. Mrs. Moore is such a vivid personality, dark-haired and dark-eyed, in appearance almost a girl, and yet able to manage her large and beautiful home on Quincy Bay, and her four children, with just one very efficient maidservant; besides taking advanced study courses in literature and history, as well as a special degree in Child psychiatry. This has given her a very responsible job in a voluntary group of highly trained women who run a school for educating and helping difficult children. The Moores’ charming home was only just finished building when the
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Major left lor overseas duty, and he has not seen it since it has been furnished—largely with beautiful old furniture inherited by Mrs. Moore from her southern home. But side by side with the old treasures Mrs. Moore has every modern amenity—the latest washing machine, which not only soaks, washes and rinses the clothes, but also dries them on the hydro-extractor principle; an ironing machine for big things, and the most modern self-regulating iron for smaller articles; and a quick freezing cabinet, of white enamel, with six deep compartments, in which are kept all kinds of summer vegetables ready for eating in winter, and without loss of essential vitamins! These quick freezers are marvellous things and I have no doubt we shall instal them in New Zealand after the war. Strawberries, raspberries, sliced peaches and such fruits are simply covered with sugar, and left to stand for a few hours, then tipped into special bags interlined with waxed paper, and put into the freezer. They come out quite fresh with no taste of being preserved. Rhubarb, greens, turnips—--1 saw all these pulled, cut up, blanched, and stored in Mrs. Moore’s quick freezer. It is a most economical unit; chickens and fowls are all bought when cheap and stored; besides butter and fruits. These convenient “ helps ” were all in the basement. Leading out of the dining room is the ideal kitchen, painted white, with a frieze of gorgeous-looking fruits and flowers cut out of the illustrated seed catalogues and pasted on in artistic groups. The stove is the latest gas thermowell, for cooking on stored heat, very economical. Every kind of cupboard and shelf is built in, as well as a big refrigerator. Two narrow tables, or “ bars,” with high stools to sit on, fitted with foot-rests, make convenient places for hasty pick-up meals or quick breakfasts. The sink is very deep and wide, of white enamel, with special faucets for hot and cold water, and sprinklers, etc.; the bench is also white enamel, grooved and slightly inclined, so as to allow any water to run towards the sink; and the dishwasher pulls out when you open its door under the sink. This not only washes and rinses all the dirty dishes which you have arranged on its wire compartments, but also dries and sterilizes them! Actually, the light
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and pretty kitchen is one of the pleasantest rooms in the house —as a kitchen should be.
The drawing and dining rooms have very long, large windows looking out on Quincy Bay, and the low sea-wall with the sail boat made fast beside it, and the big sloping green lawn, with shady elms, and ashtrees—one a mountain ash with orange-coloured berries. A long low porch-room on the left of the house, contains the little daughter’s bedroom and her playroom; and another big detached room on the right is the Major’s study. Its walls are covered from floor to ceiling with books; and it has a bathroom and kitchenette, making it a separate unit when he is working late. This room was really intended for a boat-house, with steps down to the beach, where there is safe bathing at all times. A queer, spiral, outside staircase gives an alternative entrance to Mrs. Moore’s studio on the top floor—formed of a central column of stone with steps cut winding round outside it. A kitchen-garden lies towards the back—they seem to have everything, and are a very happy, united family. The house seemed full of paua shells and Maori carvings and pictures sent home by the Major, who loved New Zealand, and actually found time to write a book about it.
While staying at Quincy, I went into Boston to spend a very happy day indeed at Lever Brothers’ headquarters, in the lovely suburb of Cambridge, across the river. This is not the great factory where the soaps and things which we associate with Levers are made; that is at present making all war material, and visitors are not allowed. But at the headquarters are all the executive offices, and the experimental kitchens, where they give demonstrations to master bakers from all over the States, in the use of the wonderful vegetable shortening, which is used everywhere in all kinds of cooking—cakes and biscuits and bread and pastry as well as for deep-frying. As a matter of fact, it is since the development of vegetable shortening that doughnuts have become such a national favourite—doughnuts and fried potato chips—because this shortening never burns or smells or discolours, or goes rancid—even in the hottest weather; and is easily digested
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and creams up easily. 1 really begged them to start making it in New Zealand after the war—it would solve all our cooking problems.
First of all, the chiefs of the firm took me to lunch at the Ritz—a very lovely lunch it was, too. Then we drove over a handsome bridge across the Charles river, and came to the large, fairly new building—looking rather more like a handsome museum or library than a business house; it stands on the wide boulevard bordering the river. Only one side of the road has buildings; on the other are seats under trees where people sit and watch the river. It is called Memorial Drive. We went up a broad flight of shallow steps, and found ourselves in a handsome square hall, with a receptionist-desk, and elevators opening from it, polished floors—all very richlooking. First I was shown into the manager’s office, wellfurnished of course, and looking on to the river. The annual boat race, Yale and Harvard, is rowed there, and the manager being an old Harvard man and a rower, glories in the view he gets of it. Boat race day is a great occasion, of course.
On the way to the kitchens we passed a display window, where a huge tray of biscuits, all made with the famous vegetable shortening, was on view—biscuits of novel designs and flavours—dominoes and pin-wheels and diamonds and all kinds of biscuits. These are suggestions for members of the bakery trade who come to Lever Brothers for advice. In the main kitchen are various ovens and stoves, both gas and electric, some large and some smaller, for demonstrations and lectures to big classes which include men from smaller bakeries as well as big ones. There was a huge electric rotating oven, in which the bread travelled round in a circle, to ensure an “ even bake ” I think that was; and other ovens which worked in different ways. Every batch of the shortening, which is made over in the big factory, is tested in these kitchens; and not one pound of it is ever sent out-and the batches consist of many tons—without a sample being tested in more than one way. There was also a doughnut machine—one of the most important uses of the shortening is for doughnut making. In the centre of this machine is a big circular container of stain-
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less steel, which is filled with the batter; around the base of this is a kind of trough containing the hot shortening, kept at the proper temperature by a thermostat. The trough is divided into compartments, each one the correct size of a doughnut. When the machine is set in motion, the trough revolves round the container, and each compartment receives the right quantity of batter for a doughnut, with the hole cut out of the centre, as it passes under a kind of tap. When the doughnut gets half-way round, a little steel finger or spatula turns it over in the fat, to brown the other side; and by the time it has completed its circle it is exactly cooked, for the machine is regulated to travel round in the necessary time- Then the doughnuts automatically drop down on to a narrow wire tray, which moves them slowly over cooled air till at the end of their journey, when they fall into wire baskets, they are just ready for you to eat. These ingenious machines may often be seen working in the windows of restaurants, so that you may be sure you will get nice fresh doughnuts inside. Everything to do with the cooking must be stainless steel—no copper must be used on any account.
Finally we went into a homely testing kitchen, where a big kettle was boiling on a stove, a table was set for tea, and an array of nut cakes, fruit cakes, madeira cakes, pastries and biscuits all made with the famous shortening, were waiting for us to enjoy them.
Boston seemed to me to have an especially old-world flavour and charm. I did not visit the shipbuilding yards, where the enormously increased activity would have brought me back to war-consciousness; but spent my few days seeing the real and permanent sights of the lovely old city. We even drove behind horses when we went to see Longfellow's old home, and the spreading chestnut tree under which the Village Blacksmith lived. His house is still there, but not the smithy; nor the school from which came the children who used to “ love to see the flaming forge and hear the bellows roar.”
Of course the great Harvard University dominates the whole city and gives it an atmosphere of dignity and quiet and non-commercialism—and of peace. Its several buildings
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are all beautiful, generally covered with thick ivy and greenery and surrounded by big old trees, and beautifully kept lawns; and playing fields and the historic “Yard.” I remember, too, a fine old gateway and a bell, but the many interesting histories connected with all parts of Harvard are not now very clear in my memory, although our driver and guide simply poured out the most fascinating accounts of everything we passed. He was “ born and raised ” there, and had a real gift for narrative. He pulled up his horses and let us out at the Botanical Museum belonging to the University, so that we might visit the Blaschka models.
1 his was a really breath-taking experience, and one for which I was not prepared. I entered the big, airy, well-lighted room, with its long rows of tables covered with glass cases, expecting to see the usual botanical specimens of ferns or flowers or plants, either pressed or preserved in some way and mounted on cardboard. But in the first case I looked into I saw a glorious collection of orchids of rare and delicate colourings, and very varied shapes, all apparently just freshly picked and brought in from a conservatory, and arranged in classes, with names, etc., underneath. Going on dowm the aisles betw'een the cases, I saw every kind of flower under glass, grouped in families (164 families of flowering plants there are here!) and showing also, in many cases, the roots and delicate fibres which grow underground, and also many kinds of butterflies or bees apparently just settling upon the flower.
It takes one quite a few minutes to properly realize that all these beautifully coloured things are not natural, but are made of glass! Fancy mignonette even, with its tiny detail and gradations of colour—all made of glass, and apparently just plucked; and cornflowers, not only whole, but also cut longitudinally, to show the inside. It is when you see the sections, enlarged, with perhaps a beautifully coloured butterfly pushing us proboscis into a floret, that you realize that this is a scientific collection for study, and not just a display of beautiful handicraft. There is a group of models showing the work of insects in transferring pollen; and another group showing
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the effect of fungus diseases. One glorious sight is a whole branch of a Golden Pippin apple, in flower—pale pink buds as well as flowers, the green leaves, everything. The rhododendrons are marvellous—different kinds and colours. The whole collection, comprising several thousand models, is the work of two men, the Blaschkas, father and son. They came of a family of glass-workers; originally in Venice and later in Bohemia. The father refused to have any assistant or apprentice other than his son; and they are now both dead—the son died in 1939 aged eighty-one. The collection is, of course, unique; and was financed for Harvard by Mrs. and Miss Ware of Boston. It took from 1887 until 1936 to complete, and is known as the Ware Collection. To such garden lovers as New Zealanders this exhibit alone is worth a trip to Boston after the war. Crowds do go—they have had 200,000 visitors in the course of one year.
Our driver also put us down at the big Christian Science Building (its headquarters) so that we might see the Mapparium. This is very interesting; it would be a fine thing to have one in New Zealand, for both children and grown-ups. At the end of a corridor, a door opens into a big glass chamber —a spherical chamber—and you walk into it, upon a glass platform, which really is the diameter of the sphere, so that you are enclosed in glass. This platform, or diameter, is thirty feet long, and wide enough to hold three or four persons abreast. The sphere represents the World; and its framework is of bronze, made up of crossway divisions, to represent the lines of latitude and longitude. Into each division is fitted a section of glass, so that the whole sphere, or world, is made up of many glass sections; each division represents ten degrees of latitude and longitude, and is painted on the inside to represent the surface of the earth at that place. So that as you stand on the glass diameter or bridge, you are really in the middle of the earth, and can look up at the north pole and down at the south pole, and at all the countries of the world, printed in the colours to which we are accustomed in maps. It really is very interesting; and the different times in various parts of the world at the same moment are shown by
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clocks attached by lines to the different countries. These were not working this year—some war-time difficulty of keeping them in order, I gathered.
The guide told us that it is strange how people from all over the world meet together in this Mapparium and invariably fraternize at once, remarking on how close together they really are after all! One day he had a group of Italians, two Chinese, a young man from Norway, a woman from Australia, and a farmer from the Middle East, all chatting together and realizing how neighbourly they ought to be!
Lovely parks, too, there are in Boston—big grassy parks where children play, with huge, shady trees, under which people lie or sit and read. They seem to use their parks very freely—there were no signs saying “ Keep off the Grass and judging by the crowds I saw, it always looks like Sunday afternoon! I walked through one park on my way to the Anzac Club and the English Speaking Union. It had an enormous lake, which was full of children bathing, and swimming, and shrieking with joy at the fun of standing under a kind of fountain which gushed out sideways like a spout and spray, further along, as I rested under a tree—the temperature was over too 0 !-I was delighted to see one of the “ swan boats ” I had heard so much of. They certainly are picturesque—just a flat platform really, with crossway seats, filled with people, under a brightly striped awning; but the front of the boat was shaped like a huge swan, with gracefully curved neck and quite a benevolent face, and the other end curved up to form the tail, behind which sat a human propeller—a man sitting on a chair, pedalling as if on a bicycle, but actually working the paddle-wheels on each side of the swan! Very economical-needing neither petrol nor oil ! The passengers were just enjoying slow motion and any little breeze they could catch!
The Anzac Club is in an old-fashioned residential hotel. A very pretty young hostess was pouring out good English tea from a large teapot, when I got there; and I had a grand welcome from some New Zealand boys—some Air Force on leave from Canada, and one or two Navy boys. The Boston
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hostesses are as enthusiastic as all the other Americans everywhere who serve in the Anzac Clubs, and I enjoyed myself very much. It was at a dinner-party in Boston that a guest said to me that everyone at her canteen liked our New Zealand boys best of all the world! I heard the same sentiment at the English Speaking Union Club there. It is quite near the Anzac. They were eager to show me everything they are doing, and sent messages to New Zealand.
Flora Mac Donald was the real name of one of the ladies there; she comes from Dunedin! They had huge cases of knitting and clothing of all kinds packed, and partly packed-things for the navy, army and air force. They make of very thick crocheted gloves of twine, mounted on tweed or cloth, for men on mine-sweepers or working with barrage balloons. They have bought a Spitfire; and were working then to buy a rescue boat. They also had boxes of good clothing ready packed for bombed-out English folks of all ages, and have adopted 1,800 men in an air force post. And every night, for the past twenty-two years, the E.S.U. club-rooms are open, with supper and tea and piano, etc., for the men of the Merchant Marine and the British officers and Apprentices Club. Ehey were a very gay and friendly crowd indeed, to me and I walked in without the slightest warning.
Aunt Daisy being shown the Kitchen of Tomorrow
lied Skelton and his team greet Aunt Daisy
Aunt Daisy inspects Beatty’s munition factory in Canada
CHAPTER X
NEW YORK
This will have to be the final chapter. Already the book is much longer than I intended; and anyhow, I couldn t tell you properly all about New York even if I had double the space. New York is a climax !
It has everything. It is a city of contrasts and of extremes. You can mix with enormous crowds on Broadway, or in the lower East Side, and your head will spin with the noise and the rush and the unceasing movement of the traffic and the people—just one continuous “ rush-hour.” And in a few minutes you can slip into quite quiet backwaters —streets of oldfashioned mansions where once the rich people lived when New York was younger; now inhabited by people who like quietude, and who work at writing or music—newspapers or magazines or radio—where new ideas and fresh presentations of old ones are produced all the time.
In music, especially, can you get extremes in New York—from the loudest and most discordant and frenzied jazz at the one end to the magnificent concerts by the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, the N.B.C. Symphony Orchestra and lots of others, at the other end; besides the Metropolitan Opera, and famous ballets—and everything crowded, everywhere, all the time.
I stayed at the New Weston Hotel, at the corner of Madison Avenue and 50th Street—quite reasonable in its charges, and quite close to Rockefeller Centre (with Radio City) as well as to the Columbia Broadcasting Studios, which was why it was selected for me.
Rockefeller Centre is marvellous. You can get everything there-entertainment, food, clothes, luxuries! It takes up three blocks, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, and from 48th to 51st Streets. The high tower of the R.C.A. building (Radio Corporation of America), 850 feet, overlooks it all. In this
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building there are almost miles of corridors, and subways, and concourses with every kind of shop—jewellers, frocks, millinery, china and glass and toys. There is a big post office and an important bank; roof-gardens, coffee shops, snack bars, restaurants of all kinds. There are dozens of elevators, in groups to serve different floors and divisions; besides escalators and ramps and staircases. The N.B.C. is also housed here, and hundreds of people every day take “ guided tours through its enormous studios. From the observation roof you get a marvellous view—there are eight telescopes up there. On the sixty-fifth floor is the Rainbow Grill, a very fashionable restaurant with a good orchestra to lend extra glamour.
On the Fifth Avenue front of Rockefeller Centre are the British Empire Building and the “ Maison Francaise and between these runs the famous Rockefeller Plaza—a long paved court, with, on each side, beautifully-dressed shop windows. which are themselves an entertainment—exquisite china and glassware and silver, and hand-woven materials and real “ antiques and down the middle, a series of oblong pools fed by low bronze fountains at their upper ends, and with masses of flowers and little shrubs bordering them each side; and long garden seats which are always filled with people enjoying these lovely surroundings, secure from all traffic. The Plaza slopes gently down to a stone gallery, walled with growing flowers and shrubs, and looking down upon the Sunken Plaza, which is reached by a wide flight of steps. 1 his is also a paved court, with another big fountain gushing forth cool water into a pool beneath a great bronze statue of Prometheus bringing fire to the world.
On one side of this court is a fashionable French restaurant and on the other an English grill; and in peace-time, both of these set scores of tables outside as well, under gay umbrellas, and with masses of flowering shrubs in tubs to make it sweet and garden-like. Shortage of labour had prevented this outdoor service this summer. Good bands play, and it is the gayest of places in summer evenings. In winter time, they flood the Sunken Court with water and have iceskating there, to music.
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On the western side of the centre is the Radio City Music Hall, considered one of the most beautiful theatres in the world, both architecturally and acoustically. It holds 6,200 people, and every seat is equally good both for seeing the stage, and for hearing. The floor slopes gently down towards the stage, which is framed by the famous Golden Arch, sixty feet high. Even the most blase person cannot escape the glamour of this theatre, I think. The ceiling is not plain but consists of overlapping layers, like a sound shell; and the drop curtain of shimmering gold material is operated by thirteen motors, so that it can drape in different ways to frame the stage shows presented by the famous “ Rockettes,” a permanent ballet company which, together with the symphony orchestra, is the principal feature of the theatre. Of course, they show the best “movies,” too; but the stage show is the great attraction. The stage proper is in three sections and works on a turntable; so that spectacular scenes can be arranged during the show and presented smoothly. The music and the designing of the ballets are absolutely super. I remember especially an orchid ballet. Built up on a high frame-work was a representation of an elaborate shoulderspray of orchids, in lovely shades of mauve and pink; the lighting was specially wonderful, changing all the time; and the orchestra wove a web of softly sensuous music around the picture, which gently and gradually came to life as the “ orchids ” resolved themselves into the dancing girls, the Rockettes, and came down to the stage to present a ballet of orchids in bouquets, ever changing in shape and arrangement —an absolute revelation in design and beauty. In the end, the flowers gracefully returned to their original form of a shoulder spray.
I saw another lovely ballet at the Radio Centre Theatre, a smaller but almost equally fine house. This was unique because it was danced on ice! Fancy a full ballet performance lasting over two hours, with glorious music, and all the forty to fifty dancers gliding along on ice, presenting conventional ballet!
Another interesting musical show was “ Carmen Jones.
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This is based on the music and plot of Bizet’s Carmen, and played entirely by negroes. It was “ Carmen up-to-date.” The chorus rushes out of a parachute factory instead of a cigarette one, and Act 11 is played on the terrace of a country club at Chicago, and outside a sports stadium. The heroine was called Carmen, but the other principal characters were just Joe and Cindy Lou and Corporal Morrell and Sergeant Brown, and Husky Miller; and there were lots of soldiers in tin hats and khaki; though the girls were dressed colourfully enough. The voices were quite beautiful, and the staging and lighting excellent. The soloists were young, and will probably have a fine musical career. The most incongruous character to me was that of Micaela, whom I always think of as fair; Cindy Lou was very thin, sang very sweetly, acted well—but did not look exactly right to me. Carmen was quite splendid—she sang the “ Habanera ” and “ Sevilliana ” in great style; and the famous “Toreador’s Song” was really satisfyingly sung by an enormous man. The Card Song was sung quite well—but looked all wrong when modernized. The finales of all the scenes were on a very lavish scale, bright colours, and loud music and almost frenzied collective dancing! Altogether a very interesting show in every way. There were one hundred and fifteen performers, all negroes.
I spent a fair bit of time at the Good Housekeeping Institute, and learnt a lot from the superlative directress, Miss Katherine Fisher. She is a Canadian by birth, absolutely competent, and a woman of such wide sympathies and interests, in touch with every new trend and development in England as well as America, and withal so vivacious and warm-hearted and generous, that spending an hour with her gives one fresh energy and inspiration for at least a month! Miss Caroline Hazlett, who has had so much to do with the organization and welfare of woman-power in England, was visiting her when I was there; and these two outstanding women were conferring and collaborating on schemes for making post-war home-life complete—materially, physically, mentally and spiritually. Both ladies have a heavy responsibility in their respective countries. I also had several fascinating hours with
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the McCall's kitchens and allied departments. They work on the same lines as the Good Housekeeping Institute, and are doing wonderful research work; and their staff is another band of eager, highly-trained, efficient women, developing new and practical ideas for homes.
I had opportunities of seeing many different organizations at work. The American Red Cross gave me a whole day. Two fine executive women drove me round all day in a station wagon, showing me the details of their enormous work in blood donations and the preparing and packing of surgical dressings of every kind. This would make an interesting chapter, especially the blood bank part, if I had space.
Another day the U.S. Navy took me out to Hunter College to see the Waves in training there. I was fortunate to be present at their weekly review—when 3,360 Waves paraded on a huge grass campus, and executed all kinds of manoevres and marchings, with three different bands—a wonderful sight. They were all dressed in summer uniforms of blue and white “ seer-sucker ” material, which doesn’t need much ironing—and the temperature was nearly too 0 .
On two occasions I was taken to Philadelphia to see different manufactures. One was specially interesting—Penicillin. I was told that between June, 1943, when this plant was first started, and February, 1944, more penicillin was manufactured in this little suburban Quaker town of West Chester than “ any place else ” in the world. By this time, I suppose the new plant for making the “ miracle drug ” in really large quantities may be completed; but when I was there this terribly necessary production was still being made by just enlarged laboratory methods. There hadn’t been time to work out big commercial processes. Thousands of hurt men were dying because of infections which could be conquered by penicillin; and therefore it had to be gone on with at once, while the bigger plant was being worked out and built.
In West Chester was a man who possessed the two things necessary—(l) scientific knowedge and experience coupled with an unconquerable tenacity of purpose; and (2) an AutoClave, or big sterilizing plant, indispensable in the treatment
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o£ the medium on which penicillin is grown. When the crucial moment came, this mild-mannered Quaker scientist, Mr. Rettew, set to work, and in a little over three weeks had a huge garage transformed into a penicillin factory, provided with the means of filtering, sterilizing, and heat-controlling of the air in certain chambers, and, generally, of producing penicillin up to the point where, as a sodium-salt solution, it is taken in stainless steel containers, packed in “ dry ice,” to the Kimberton Laboratories a few miles away. Here it goes through the final stages of being “ shell-frozen ” and dried by a vacuum process; and then, as a precious powder, in small, flame-sealed glass tubes, it is packaged up ready to be sent away to the front. I saw the whole thing, and met and talked with Mr. Rettew—such an unassuming, quiet gentleman who nevertheless impressed me as being a blend of knowledge, stability and strength of purpose.
No one is allowed to take notes in these laboratories. In fact it is not often that visitors are allowed at all and we had to be specially vouched for to get past the guards. Briefly, here is the outline of what I saw.
In two great stainless steel tanks, glass-lined, was being made the liquid food, or nutrient, on which will best grow the special “ mould ” which then excretes the precious penicillin into the liquid. Of course this food mixture is a secret, and has taken a great deal of research. You will not get penicillin from just any mould—formed on bread or cereal or any such thing. The proper mixture has to be compounded of most carefully measured ingredients, and kept for the right length of time, at the right temperature. I saw it being stirred in the “ mixers ” with stainless steel “ agitators.” Enormous quantities have to be made because less than too pounds of dry penicillin is extracted from between five to eight thousand gallons of this liquid.
Next we saw this liquid-food being put into bottles—actually two-quart milk bottles. They fill, process, and wash 40,000 bottles every day! The filling is done mechanically just like milk bottles in a huge dairy; but less than a pint is allowed in each, so that there may be a big surface of liquid
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when the bottles, Having been plugged with cotton, are laid down horizontally and stacked in big metal trucks (like outsize tea-waggons) —276 bottles to each truck. The trucks are then wheeled right into the big sterilizers, three giant ovens which each hold three trucks. After half an hour, the trucks are wheeled out again, and taken to a pre-cooling room, where they have to be cooled, at the proper speed, from 250° Fah. down to the proper temperature for inoculation.
This is done in the isolation area, where everyone is required to don heavy, white, sterile gowns, and hoods to cover the hair, nose, and mouth. We looked like members of the Klu Klux Klan! Even the air is passed through a series of filters and over a bank of sterile lamps; and there is a queer odour from the action of the ultra-violet rays and ozonators.
Next, the trucks of bottles are taken into small cubicles to be inoculated. We were only allowed to look in through the glass windows; nobody is allowed in but the actual operators —all women—and they have to change all their clothing for sterile garments, and “ scrub up ” like surgeons do before operations. Very quickly the women remove the cotton plug with their rubber-gloved, antiseptic hands, and introduce an exact amount of special fluid containing seeds or spores of penicillin. This will start the growth of the mould.
Now comes the incubation period of about ten days or so, during which the bottles of inoculated liquid are kept stacked up in racks—still lying horizontally—in four enormous rooms. The controlling of the temperature in these rooms is a tricky job, because it must be kept steady, at about 23 0 Centigrade. But in spite of air-conditioning, and special devices for distributing the air, yet when once the mould begins growing it generates a certain amount of heat. The thousands of bottles, stacked up in the closely-packed aisles of racks, do raise the temperature around them considerably; and the supervisors have their work cut out controlling the temperature, for if it rises over four or five degrees the production of penicillin may be completely stopped! The supervisors say they have to fuss like mother-hens.
In three or four days the mould begins to form on the
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surface of the liquid; and as time goes on it looks very queer indeed, and most unattractive. When it is ready, it really looks like a kind of waffle—and it is called a “ Matte.” It is a horrible, bluish-grey-green in colour, and is covered with little yellow globules. But this Matte is all the time excreting the wonderful penicillin into the liquid below.
Now the bottles are ready to be taken down to the “ Harvesting room;” so out of the racks they come, to be packed again, carefully, into the metal trucks. Women are standing behind huge stainless steel tanks, covered with a straining cloth; and they take the bottles and empty them into these, so that the Matte is left on the cloth and only the precious liquid goes through. Even one bottle, if it had picked up the slightest contamination, or escaped one precaution, could spoil a whole tank full of “ broth,” as it is now called. So you see the reason for all the care. They say penicillin is the most “ temperamental ” drug in the world. Of course it is tested at every stage.
Well, I haven’t space to go through the final processes. To see one part of the laboratories we drove to a beautiful estate in the country, and came back via Valley Forge, seeing all sorts of historical places. I saw the blood plasma equipment there, too—a bottle of distilled water, and the plasma, and the necessary tubing and full directions for use by any unskilled person if the field conditions make it necessary, so that no soldier need die for lack Of blood infusion—all packed in a small parcel, and one for every soldier.
This work is all done by a firm which has a branch in New Zealand for which I advertise.
My other visit to Philadelphia was with another great firm. We started by bus from their own office, actually, 123 East Forty-Second Street, for the Baltimore and Ohio railway cannot get room for a terminal in New York City, so turns a difficulty into an asset by running buses from certain points right to the train—very convenient indeed. We drove through the city and right down on to the ferry, crossing the Hudson to Jersey City; then on down the platform, and stopped opposite our parlor car, all air-conditioned and comfortable.
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It was a lovely experience crossing the misty river early in the morning, with other boats and ferries all round you, one even carrying a train!
I’ve told you about the broadcasting in New York—except perhaps the one I did for the United Nations Information Service at W.N.E.W. I spoke for one of the Anzac partners, the other being an Australian soldier on shortwave from Sydney; and the third speaker was in the studio, a Chinese journalist. The girl at the Hammond organ played “ Waltzing Matilda ” as a theme for the Australian, and actually thought that would do for New Zealand too! But I managed to find “ God Defend New Zealand ” in her book, so that was that! We had a very lively broadcast.
I had a wonderful permanent wave in New York—the new “ cold wave.” All the salons use it there, and nobody who has had a cold-wave would ever have any other kind. They “wind” the hair a little differently from the old way; and then saturate each roll with a particular lotion. Then you go and sit down with a magazine in an easy chair for about half-an-hour, till the specialist says it is time to go back and have another dressing on the rolls. Another period of reading and relaxing (very restful) and then another dressing. I fancy they used different lotions at different times, and I know they adapt them to the type of hair. It is so comfortable and easy —no heat of any kind—even the lotions don’t make any steaming or heating, like the old zotos wave. I forget whether they have three or four dressings. Then you are shampooed and “set” in the ordinary way—except that their “set” is so lovely—you don’t come away with those regular curls (like wood-shavings) arranged symetrically all round the head; they just comb out the curls, and push them up with the fingers and mix them up loosely, so that the hair actually does look naturally wavy. They are very careful, too, about the cutting beforehand—they study the shape of your head and face, and cut the hair in layers, to suit you.
One Sunday I was invited to the City Hall at noon to meet Mayor La Guardia and sit in at his weekly broadcast. He was wonderful—like the head of a clan talking to his people, on
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matters pertaining not only to the city, but also in its relation to world problems. He was not afraid to touch on very controversial subjects either, and yet was so homely and human, advising mothers about the prevention of infantile paralysis, which was almost epidemic during that hot weather; and suggesting plans to help with the problems of marital misunderstanding leading to unnecessary divorce—all kinds of subjects he deals with—just things that have happened through the week. He talks in his own office, through equipment from the city’s own broadcasting station. He is really the friend of all the people, who often speak of him as the “ Little Flower,” because his name is really Fiorella. They smile at his “ little ways ” but they trust him. He had a chat with me about New Zealand and I invited him to come over and see us some time—as I did everybody.
One thing definitely not to miss is the Hayden Planetarium. It is part of the museum of natural history, and is in Central Park. You can see its huge dome a long way off. I was taken there on a wet evening, and when we reached the outside gate, the taxi-driver apologized for not taking us right to the door, saying “ The Little Flower doesn’t like us to drive in! ”
The planetarium has two special rooms on two floors; besides spacious corridors containing a collection of meteors (how fascinating to touch something from outside the world!) and wonderful paintings, and photographs of eclipses and comets and all kinds of astronomical phenomena. The chief room holds the great Zeiss projector. It cost about 80,000 dollars. There are seats for about 400 people; and there is a big audience twice a day. When you are seated, the lights are put out; and then the sky overhead lights up, and you look up at the heavens, with all the planets and stars in their proper positions and in proper relation to the earth and to the sun. Sometimes it is the northern sky and sometimes the southern, according to which end of the great projector is being used; but it is always perfectly correct. It is worked by a lecturer from a sort of pulpit in which he sits and which holds the control box—something like a railway signal-station. The programmes are changed every month, and are fasci-
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nating in the extreme. Somtimes the lecture will deal with the sky as it was before the age of man—and will show the stars changing position, etc. Another time the subject will be how the heavens will appear in a thousand years from now. The sky in the dome remains the same; the stars are worked from the projector by means of lenses and lights and apertures. What a wonderful idea! The last time I was there, the programme was “ A Trip to the Moon.” We landed in a big crater, and learnt all about the conditions there—the absence of atmosphere, and therefore of weather, of sound, of smell, of colour; we saw the sky from the moon; it was all exciting and fascinating; the lecturer himself was delightful.
On the lower floor is the Hall of the Sun, which shows our solar system. The whole ceiling is taken up with the sun itself in the middle. Around it, actually moving on wires, at the proper speed and relative distance, are Jupiter, with his several moons, Saturn, our Earth, with our own moon, Venus and all the rest!
I went to the Stage Door Canteen in New York, as well as in Hollywood. It is really a Servicemen’s Club. Of course I had to be specially arranged for—by my N.B.C. television producer, as it happened. No women, except the properly registered hostesses, can get in—and they are all finger-printed and approved by the F. 8.1., and have to show their photo and licence every time they go in. There are actually hundreds of hostesses—senior and junior—and all are related in some way to the moving picture industry or the radio or the theatre. I gave a short talk—a few words of greeting really, on the stage in the big club-room, where professional stars of every magnitude appear. I was very heartily received, and several American sailors there said, “ Sure—l know New Zealand—it’s a swell little country.”
The International Division of the N.B.C. honoured New Zealand by giving “ Aunt Daisy ” a grand luncheon in a beautiful restaurant called the “ Belle Meuniere.” There were eight executives present, including two ladies; and I sat beside the chief, Mr. John Royal (what a man!). I was given
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a great deal of valuable information by this division, and owe them a big debt of gratitude.
I haven’t told you about the beautiful churches, and must not begin now. Although I am a Protestant, I went mostly to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, because it is right on Fifth Avenue, between my hotel and the N.8.C., so that I could go in every evening on my way home, and get quiet-minded, in that lovely place, and say my prayers for my scattered family so far away. St. Patrick’s is always open, and seems almost like a homehundreds of servicemen and servicewomen—from all parts of the world, stream up the wide shallow steps and into the huge friendly building, which has lots of side chapels and altars, as well as the magnificent High Altar, with the great gold canopy. I don’t know whether it ever shuts—l’ve been in after eleven at night; and could see from my bedroom window streams of people going in before six in the morning, every day of the week. I believe the music is very good, but was never at a service there. It is like a quiet retreat in the midst of the great city, and is never empty.
My last Sunday in New York came all too soon. I went to the Symphony as usual at five o’clock, and heard them announce that the conductor next Sunday would be Toscanini! I was invited that evening to meet Quentin Reynolds at the Blue Network, and to sit in with him at his broadcast —a lovely experience. He spoke very beautifully in his deep voice—about the last time he saw Paris. He said she wasn’t young and gay then—she was like a tired old lady, who hadn’t been thought worth defending! It was almost poetry; and he ended on an optimistic note. He told me he always read Ngaio Marsh’s detective stories, as relaxation—badly needed in the extraordinary life of a war-correspondent.
We had every bit of luggage opened and examined on the wharf before we were allowed to get on the launch which was to take us down the harbour to the good old “ Akaroa,” the veteran ship of both wars. Also, all books and pamphlets have to be previously examined and sealed by a censor. I had a lot of stuff from the N.B.C. and it all had to be sealed; I
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also brought several recorded talks home with me—interviews with N.B.C. personalities, as well as other interesting people, including Phyllis Moir, who was once Winston Churchill’s secretary and wrote a book about it.
I had prepared myself for a crowded and uncomfortable ship, but found just the opposite. We climbed up the gangway and went into the big lounge which was just the same as ever, easy chairs and chesterfields and little tables and everything—and a steward in white clothes actually pouring real English tea from a big teapot and handing thin bread and butter! Marvellous! The bedrooms had not been dismantled and made to hold four or five times as many, as most ships have had to do; but still held only two comfortable beds—plenty of room for everything. I had the nicest of room-mates, a lady coming to New Zealand to join her husband who was on one of the last two ships to get out of Singapore! She had been sent to Vancouver beforehand, so escaped those horrors. Our ship carried a large number of English and Scottish women, on their way to join Australian and New Zealand husbands or fiances. There were thirty-one children on board-from seven weeks old to seven years. Captain Hart-man-well-known to many New Zealanders—was at his best all the way, genial and humorous and ready to join in with the passengers at all games and sports, and dances. He and the officers got up a really lovely children’s party at the end, with streamers and flags and paper-hats, and squeakers and everything—the very first party that most of the little ones, from war-weary Britain, had ever had. We also carried numbers of Australian and New Zealand servicemen, chiefly Air Force and Navy, on their way home for a furlough. One Australian lieutenant showed me the last snap ever taken of our proud “ Awatea ” just before she was blown up! He was there.
It was an experience to travel in convoy-very slow, but very heartening to see all those rows of ships on either sidewith warships guarding the outside circle. We dropped one convoy at Cuba and went on again with another, smaller one. We stopped there only at a naval base and were not allowed ashore. After Panama, we came on alone, and much
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faster. Coming through the canal and the locks was a great thrill. We had a few hours ashore at Colon, where there are many shops selling curios and silks and fountain pens, and even silk stockings!
d he voyage was blessedly uneventful, and we had only one storm—not a very bad one. We even had stewardesses to look after us; and from them, as well as from the English passengers, we got a much clearer idea of the struggles and hardships which the British have taken so philosophically for five long years. We heard all about the “ buzz-bombs,” too—horrible! 1 hey all revelled in the abundance of food on board; and especially our Anchor butter! Time passed quickly enough—sleeping and reading and talking and playing games. There was even the ship’s library as of old. Of course we had frequent boat-drill, and even the children learned to carry life-jackets.
The day before we docked in Wellington was brilliantly fine and sunny; and we sat on deck, watching the “Long White Cloud ” get clearer and nearer, and showing off to the Australians about our lovely New Zealand. There was a full moon, too, so we stayed up late, anchored in the stream, admiring the hills around the harbour, and the rows of lights, like strings of beads, round Oriental Bay and out to Eastbourne. But next morning was a different story, for we woke up to a real old southerly buster—cold and very wet, much to the Australians’ amusement.
But no matter what the weather, it was home, and it felt lovely.
For my part, I was home just in time. In order that my morning session should keep on running, I had sent recorded programmes from America. When I got back there was only one left!
I left New Zealand on April 14th and came ashore again on September 28th—after a very valuable experience. Cheerio and Kia Ora, everybody !
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Bibliographic details
APA: Daisy, Aunt. (1945). Aunt Daisy & Uncle Sam : Aunt Daisy's war-time journey to United States. Whitcombe and Tombs.
Chicago: Daisy, Aunt. Aunt Daisy & Uncle Sam : Aunt Daisy's war-time journey to United States. Christchurch, N.Z.: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1945.
MLA: Daisy, Aunt. Aunt Daisy & Uncle Sam : Aunt Daisy's war-time journey to United States. Whitcombe and Tombs, 1945.
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Aunt Daisy & Uncle Sam : Aunt Daisy's war-time journey to United States Daisy, Aunt, Whitcombe and Tombs, Christchurch, N.Z., 1945
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