EVACUEE FAMILIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 233, 1 October 1940, Page 11

EVACUEE FAMILIES.

SISTER-IN-CHARGE.

ON LEAVE IN AUCKLAND. On leave in Auckland after travelling to Australia as sieter-in-charge of the families who were evacuted from Shanghai and Hongkong, is Miss Kathleen Thomson, a member of the Queen Alexandria Imperial Nursing Service. MisThomson, who trained at the Waikato Hospital and was a New Zealand gold medallist, joined the British Military Nursing Service about four years and a half ago, and was first stationed at Aldershot. Later, she was sent to •Shanghai and Hongkong, being there •when the decision to evacuate the wives and families of the British forces was made.

"One hundred and seventy-eighl mothers and children were evacuated and we were given about a month's notice to leave. The evacuation was very orderly," Miss Thomson said. '"The British forces went to Singapore, and it was a sad moment when we passed their ship in the river, and the wives were able to recognise their husbands. Their destination, then, was unknown. Some of the women "were rather upset at first, few of them having ever been to Australia, but the voyage was a happy one, and they are all settling down now.

"The evacuees went to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, and they were given a wonderful reception, particularly in Brisbane," Miss Thomson continued. "Many of them took flats of their own, and I stayed to see them settled in their new homes. Already, when I left, the Australian food and the freeh air had made a difference to the children, and they were all enjoying tremendously the life" on the beaches and the open air." Speaking of the war between Japan and China, Miss Thomson sai<J that the Chinese did not seem to care much about it, though they were confident they would eventually drive out the Japanese. There was a great deal of terrorism in Shanghai, shootings occurring every day in the streets. "It is worse than Chicago!" she said. Miss Thomson da staying with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Thomson, of Clive Road, Epsom, and expects to be here about three or four weeks, after which «he will return to Hwtgkong.