WOMEN "DOING THEIR BIT.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 240, 7 October 1916, Page 18

WOMEN "DOING THEIR BIT.

SOME TABSITT VOMJWTEEBS. JITBASPBESSET-PICKISG- PJCSTC. fFrom Our lady Correspondent.) IXXSTKJX, August IS. Tt was with mixed feelings that my cliwn'and 1 iand-ed in our names T-o the Labour Exchange lady. We had just done our second years arts at Glasgow L niversity, and -were anxious "to do our bit" in the Long Vac. This seemed a work which was urgent, and one whicb -c\< could tackle without over-much quaking as to skill —raspberry picking. The preliminaries were all too coon over. A notice arrived calling on us to attend a meeting at the Exchange. There Mr. Hodge—-the pioneer of the raspberry growing industry at" Auchterarder —gay« up a full description of "srhat we were aeked to undertake. Buchanan Street station and two "train-loads of us would have been the next scene had we been shown at the --movies.' , . . - Two hundred -women, all told, off to Auchterarder! We -were a mixed lot, but all more_ or less connected with the leaching profession. Our little -crowd were "Varsity students; there were also Training College students, elementary school teachcts, and representatives of most of the specialising teachers, as we shall see. For thereby hangs the tale of the -domestic science teacher, which all but led to—but I must tell the etory in order. Wlen -we arrived Jit the disembarkation centre, we found waiting us some agricultural carriages—in plain English, carts. One, labelled "Aros, Sollow mc." we discovered was to be our lode and guiding star. "We followed it for a couple of miles along the highroad, and for another mile by a rough road through the raspberry fields, the whote troupe of ■Cβ, onic one hundred strong, tramping it. gaily anticipating the "tea wiieh lay ahead and waiting -us. It did —tea. arid bread and margarine, doorsteps of it, and c cookses" (anglice. buns) by -way of a xeEsiu very bard and not fhe kind -that self-respecting-Scottish or New Zealand housewives serve up e& dainffiv and easily. However, that was all in ihe dayfe work. We didn't expect to "be lodged in the Ritz. Then -ire "took "up our quarters—t'n tents, with tows of beds, eight per dormitorT. We had been -warned beforehand of having to sleep two in a bed, hence tie advisability of -having a chum! So each dormitory accommodated sixteen oi us, pretty -dose packed on our bede_ of straw. Most of Dβ brought our own oed linen, for we'd been advised to do this. What we iadnt --visuaused before were the earwigs—swarms of them, whole battalions. But we "were doing our *it. Trifles like that would not deter. Sunday, when we prospected and climbed "the neighbouring Craig Roseie, "we Teally etaxted to * go on the land 5, at ajn. on Monday. The men on fhe estate acted ac knockers-up by banking on onr corrugated iron walls, a'big tattoo, or ratKer " revalley," «s the Tommies call reveille. We lad all provided ourselves "with strong boots and overalls, and tie "wise virgins" wore stiff cuff protectors and fingerless gloves. Else they toon acquired an interest vr tbie-indnstry more painful than fruitful —to wit. » large crop of prickles not raly on hands, but right np the arms. Poisoned fmger3 was a risk "Wβ bad perforce to the half-baked doctor in charge -oi v≤. a medical student, had no sinecure. _3Che foreman allotted us our places. WeJffiOcOMek the fruit down one side of a row of canes and up the opposite side -of the next tow. Half way down we placed- » big bucket, and slung at our waists we carried a billy-can painted white inside. Into these we picked the juicy fruit —eometimes on our knees, sometimes bending down, and always for us. Trew chums, back-breaking work. Still it had its compensations! There was ihe" joyful day on -which I broke my own-record, I "weighed in 701b of fruit at Ad-alb, whole three and Svepence hard earned coin, for one day's hard labour from -6 to 9,10 to 1, and" 2 to 3—a ninefcour day! .W_ell, this you can imagine was no short-lent to fortnne. We hadn't expected it-to be. but we thought this left too Email a. margin between 8/6 we paid for our keep in dormitory and margarine doorsteps. We had a little etrike —quite a little one—but came out with ' a. 50 per cent advance to I'd a lb. We j deserved it, for on that glorious 701b day j we ■were on the crest of a wave. Raspberry fruit-picking is not so simple as it | sounds. Tie -canes are picked over when the first berries ripen. That first crop is neither so good nor so large as the eecosd, tWat again is not so good as the third, the bumper crop. The picking? ! that follow tail off in quality and quantity, to such an extent that it was impossible even at Jd a lb to make more than e-ifuseraHle iragc The custom is ■fchen to advance the rate; in our case. we wanted Id for all pickings after ihe fourth. We -were an Oliver Twistlike and another of our demands was granted tefore w € reached the striking stage. Tie arrangement made beforehand was that we were to pay 8/6 a •week for our board and lodging." and lots did not make that amount by their week's work. Our incipient strike for a lower charge for board was nipped in the bnd by a. concession to 7/ a week. What we got was- At reveille, tea. stuff, too, and one rice biscuit; breakfast, either porridge followed by tea and oread and margatine, or tea, bread and margarine and a boiled egg; dinner, coup—--very thin—a very small portion of tough meat with two potatoes, or meat and potatoes with milk pudding tea, wife bread and margarine; supper, cocoa of the thinnest, "wateriest, aiid another rice biscuit. Tiis was good enough on paper: and actually we were so hungry that we could eat "onything" . . . like the baby in the etory. The said story relates to a elum grandmother, who was sobbing out lier grief to the health visitor about the death of her six-month?-old grandchild, which was such a good baby and —perfection of perfection—could* eat "onvtfcinjr." Xo doubt the coroner had his views about the subject. As I say, we ate the food; but none of us would give the cooks a certificate that they could •'write home about." The meat was tough always, and tastele*; tbe pnddings.were too often modelled on King Alfrea's cakes to be appetising. What lent irony to the position was that the cooks were volunteers from domestic science classes! But "it's an ill win' that dlsws naebotlv quid!" We spent all—and "come" more—in the town on supplementary meals. 7 The favourite trigh tea had us its "piece de resistance" ham and eggsOn tbe epot there was a littile store where we could buy chocolate, becmta, lrm6Hade and such like , "bors d'oeuweß -, U trim our tasteless official menu. We each and all washed up our wra OTshes on bendee outside, the dining tut. The ablutory arrangements -were ci tie eeverest wartime economy—tm were provided in a shed, aad ws

fetched the "water ourselves from tbs taps. Some -of -us haTdier ones, instead of fetching --water, JFent to it. A nice wee burn, ran through the estate, and we iiathed there in the early morning. This, an "extra ■tarn" in our day, pleased us mightily "when the -weather -was fine, as, luckily for us, it -wae most of the time. The one exception -was on a certain Saturday. A terrific* thunderstorm came on. We had to stop work and fly; to the dormitory sheds; and then, so i heavy tras the down-rush, we had to make trenches to carry- the water off, else out sleeping Irate had been invaded. We felt as if -we were in training for camp life, if .not for the firing line, and it was quite like .Salisbury Plain and the training camp at Sling. There was another resource —to go into the town to get a bath—a <*ase of banging a *"saxpenee" in one iell swoop, but it was worth it —hot water laid, " regardless." We had our intervals from berry picking. The tH-ning hut contained apiano. Impromptu concerts, and even a dance or tiro, teith a fetr of the men billeted in the neighbourhood—Black Watch men, alas! not in kilts. Excepting , one or two from France on leave. They told us that their pet name among the poilus was the "corps de ballet." ■Even wet days had their attempts at recreation: the musical instruments— combs. Our " dorm," in fact, had an allstar cast of comb artists, and onr Tendering of "Land of Hope and Glory * was the jor of the camp —at least "of thoee -with any sense of the beauty of art. What exactly tLi? experiment proved it would be difficult to discover. It would take an economies student to do that. To our poor mnddled and "only arts" students, we seemed to be sacrificed io make a jam manufacturer's profits. I fear the experiment to him "will have been made at the cost of future concessions in wage 3 a little nearer in level to a Xew Zealand mrniTTvntn irage, based on a sum "to ensure a. decent standard of life without supplements from extraneous sources. We did it cheerfuDj- enough. Was it not for the nation? And with our boys in the trenches we'd do much more than this at need. But being as we are, witn some modicum of "brain tissue concealed beneath our boudoir caps, we could not help but ask at whose need? But the problem will be solved in that time we now look for soon—after the war. Just now we are merely "doing our bit."