OLD SOLDIER SPIRIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 183, 4 August 1932, Page 3

OLD SOLDIER SPIRIT.

BETUHNED MEN IN CAMPS.

MAKING BEST OF CONDITIONS.

"We went out looking for complaints, but we could not find any," said Mr. J. Spence, secretary of the Wellington Returned Soldiers' Association, when reviewing the visit of seven members of the executive to the two camps for unemployed returned soldiers at Paraparaumu on Sunday. '"One complaint we heard was that the men did not get mustard or sauce with their meat." A few men did not have sufficient underclothing, but the association hopes to be able to supply that with the help of the Red Cross. "The results were very satisfactory," Mr. Spence said. "The camps are excellently sited, No. 1 in Beach Road and No. 2 in Soldiers' Road. The tents are dry, clean and tidy. There are two men to a tent, and a fireplace in each tent. There was no shortage of wood, the men gathering their own from the nearby farms, and there was a plentiful supply of water. Shower baths had recently been erected in No. 1 camp, and would shortly be available to No. 2 camp also. The cooking was done by the men or by cooks selected from them.

"Dinner was being served when we arrived at No. 1 camp, and the menu was steak and kidney pie, pumpkin, boiled and roasted potatoes; pudding, stewed apricots and rice, and tea. There was certainly no shortage of food,' he said. Mr. Spence said that the Returned Soldiers' Association was going to make an effort to get a battery wireless set for each camp, so that the men would be kept in touch with the outside world. "We noted particularly the large number of elderly men in the camps, and also that men who had come to us for relief before they went into the camp, and were despondent and disgruntled, had changed and were much better.' "The old sohlier spirit, the determination to make the best of conditions and make themselves comfortable, is much in evidence among the men in these camps. For example, the men in No. 1 camp had augmented the shower provisions by the use of some oil-drums, under which they built a fire, and had hot showers." The camp foremen, Messrs. Marr and Beere, who exercised a great deal of tact and common sense, had told him that the men could get leave at any time, if they had two or three days' work in town, and could come back to the camps immediately they had finished. The two camps at Paraparaumu are the only two soldier camps in New Zealand, Mr. Spence said, but the Wellington association hoped that the movement would extend to other parts of the Dominion. He did not think that any more camps would be required in. Wellington.