Readers All

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 270, 13 November 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

Readers All

Well, the great news has arrived at last. Air mail brought to the Peter Pan office one morning ihis week the names of twenty boys and girls living in far-away, lonely country districts who, in the opinion of Dr. Butchers, headmaster of the correspondence schools of New Zealand, are in the greatest need of a holiday such as the one We plan to give.

The arrival of this exciting air mail at once thrilled and saddened us. Thrilled us, because, of course, t here at last before us Were listed the names of the children whom for weeks past we have all been working to help — whom we fell a friendly personal interest in, even before the great day arrives when we shall all really meet. And saddened because Dr. Butchers had revealed to us the pitiful living conditions of many of the country children of New Zealand, whose homes, by reason of their inaccessibility, are veritably lost to the outside world.

Bff ore ™e / have Dr. Butchers' letter, in which he gives brief glimpses into the lives of some of his pupils. The disjointed scraps of information make tragic reading. To read of a ten-year-old boy whose mother writes, "He is a lonely little boy — he has never had any play mates"; of a fifteen-year-old girl who toils from dawn until dark at house work and farm work, and works at her studies by candle light; of another who has never travelled further than thirty miles from the lonely bush homestead, which, for the winter months of the year, is entirely cut off from civilisation by floods and inaccessible slock tracks. Unbelievably saddening it is to read of these children.

It is difficult to think of a life without school friends — without the bustle of tumbling from bed on the dot of seven, scrambling through bed making, breakfast, shoe cleaning, snatching up lunches and books, and diving breathlessly out the gate because Bill is wailing at the corner of the next road. Ordinary, unexciting, everyday life, certainly, but how strange and sad to know that even these small joys are denied to many — that the boys and girls whose names are on my desk before me now have never shared those breathless adventures, those hilariously amusing incidents, those inter-school cricket and basketball matches, or any of the other hundred and one little things that when combined make school days the most carefree and joyous days of one's life.

Astounding as tt may seem to us who live in the populous towns and cities of New Zealand and enjoy to the full the comforts and pleasures they have to offer, there are still, in this modern year of 1937, pioneer men and women eking out a dreary, lonely existence under circumstances that are similar to those of the early pioneers of eighty years and more ago.

The following extract is taken from a letter written by the mother of a small girlie we hope to bring to Auckland: —

' f* e d eleven 'pet' lambs, then separate, feed fourteen calves, while the others take the cows away and ride out with the cream. We are the furthest out. so, of course, have to start very early to catch the sledge at 8.30 a.m. at the end of the clay bush road; the cream is afterwards transferred to a cream truck. I have only just managed to wash the separator and everything and prepare breakfast by the time the men folk Set back. fj C L° c °"y eniences he ! e - All water has to be carried from a creek, all wood to be hauled down from far paddocks. I bake bread in heavy camp ovens over an open fire, churn butter, make soap, salt down meat, etc., etc. I knit all the socks and all our jerseys, and have to squeeze in house work, cooking and endless mending. My husband had to .build a shearing and wool shed and pens this year, all out of raw material. First fell the tree, crosscut into sections and then split the palings with a split paling knife and haul all the timber, posts, etc., down the creek — days and days of work."

Naturally enough, as Dr. Butchers writes, not every correspondence pupil is so situated. Many live on large modern farms, where private cars make possible frequent trips to the nearest town or city. Many will complete their correspondence training by a year or so at some big school or college. Of these girls and boys, however. We are not concerned. Ours is the task of bringing enlightenment and broader understanding — and joy, untmagined joy — to the lives of twenty of the less privileged children of whom I have just written. And in this task We ask your help, and the help of every /T) t^^TjW^m^ o " reader, young or old, who believes that Christmas is a season of love and [VfA/Asi of charity. 0^