PEOPLE ANGRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 218, 13 September 1940, Page 9

PEOPLE ANGRY.

BUT NOT PANIC-STRICKEN. NOVELIST'S WIFE'S COMMENTS. No place in England was safe from German bombs, . but the people went about their affairs with a minimum of fuss, said Mrs. Alec Waugh, Australian wile of the English novelist, who returned to Australia from England recently. They were angry at the inconvenience, but there was no panic. Mrs. Waugh, formerly Miss Joan uhirnside, whose husband is in the British Army and was at General Headquarters in France for a month, brought her three children—Andrew, aged sevenVeronica, six, and Peter, nearly two, I hope to be back in England next April. Hut that time I hope it will be all over," she said. Referring to the Sydney criticism of women in uniform, Mrs. Waugh said there had been a similar controversy in hAiglaud when some people thought that uniforms for A.R.P. workers were a waste. Her view, however, watt that tli® uniforms saved time and prevented confusion. Haiders were over the country district where she lived on every one of the last eight nights she was there. Three bombs were dropped indiscriminately a few miles away on one night. In the country the people did not trouble to leave their houses when the enemy was overhead. In the cities, of course, they quickly went to anti-air-craft shelters. Distant bomb explosions never seemed to worry people, but the noise of antiaircraft guns was troublesome. Fear of Epidemics. However, it was not that that made her glad to be away from it all. Neither was it the food position, because there was no shortage. Even the scarcity of butter was made up for by margarine, which was good, although that might also be rationed. What she wished to avoid was involving her children in the possibility of lepidemifcs later in the war. The petrol, rationing was inconvenient in the country. Visit* to friends were limited to a five-mile radius often (by pony trap. That was not safe travelling on main roads because of speedy heavy military traffic. Her husiband had completed a new •book, "No Truce With Time," a novel set in England and the West Indies, Mrs. Waugh said. It was written during the "blitzkrieg," but had nothing to do with war. She added that the 'bottom had fallen out of the 'book-publishing business because of the war. People did not feel like concentrating on a 'book. Mrs. Waugh said that it was "impossible" for people (between 16 and 80, even Australians, to obtain permits to come there—unless they were guardians or mothers of children. Guarantees that people would not be a bur'den on the country they went to had to be given [and money could not be sent out of ' Britain.