LOVE FOR THEIR KING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 192, 28 May 1945, Page 4

LOVE FOR THEIR KING.

THE PEOPLE OF DENMARK. There is something very special in the love of the Danish people for their 75-year-old King Christian, who is the centre if their peace rejoicings, writes a'war correspondent in a dispatch from Copenhagen. 'They tell proudly of the time during the German occupation when he fell frhjn his horse and German guards came forward to help him. An old market woman waved them back and cradled his head in her lap until medical help arrived. Denmark is full of such little stories. The best is about two German officers who went to. see a Viking ship dug from the earth some time ago in the southern part of Seeland. They looked at the old timbers and said, “Yes it is a ship, but it is very small.” An old Danish farmer standing by said. “It is a ship all right. We invaded and conquered England in ships like that.” I have just heard of a resistance newspaper which was edited from a flat in the same building as the Gestapo. The editor thought it was much safer to work right under the noses of his enemies.

This is a fantastic time. All sorts of people come up and tell of what has been happening and what has been done, not by them, but by others. I have not heard one Dane boasting of what he did during the occupation. Always they tell of what was done by others whom they “just happened to know.”