GENEROUS HOSTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 310, 31 December 1940, Page 9

GENEROUS HOSTS.

GRATITUDE VOICED. NEW ZEALANDERS AT HOME. The following letter from a grateful New Zealand soldier appeared in the London "Times" on November 28 last:— Sir, —One of the pleasures I had promised myself while in England was to write to the editor or "The. Time*," and believe me it gives an added zeet to this when the subject of this letter is regarding the almost overwhelming hospitality shown to iK New Zea landers from people all over Great Britain. I might almost say that the kindness you have shown us is responsible for most of the appearances "on the mat" that we Enzedders have made since our arrival. Back in Xew Zealand every one of us, irrespective of our parents' nationalities, refer to England as '-Home," and Home it certainly has been. Due no doubt to your trait of understatement, we. fellows had pictured British folk as reserved to the point of suspiciousness, but, sir, we find that insofar as we are concerned you display an abandon and hospitality almost Continental in its fervour. During the last few weeks I have read or heard of innumerable appeals by the Lord Lieutenants of counties and people in similar positions all over the country asking people to look after all troops during the coming winter. Speaking for myself both ae a representative of H.M.'e N.Z. Forces and personally, I can assure you that these pleas are unnecet-

sary. I am sure our host* would hate to do Hitler a good turn by immobilising us through a surfeit of the fleehpots during the winter.

I cannot finish without saying that thanke to the glorious summer we had after arriving in mid-June, we were, through a combination of circumstances which it would be unnecessarily indiscreet to mention here, able to see much of the South of Kngland in all the. glory of a true Knglish summer. London, of course, was the realisation of the dreams of most of us, and we have been lucky enough to see it in the summer before the "black-out" , and the Blitzkrieg had dimmed its radiance. My one wish is to be in .Kngland on the first Victory night when a new word will be coinedto displace "Mafficking" and all its connotations. And now I would like to wish you, your paper, and your Teaders and' all our hosts and hostesses "Kia Ora" and thanks.—Yours, etc., JOHN O'NEILL. (PfceJ, 2nd X.Z.E.F.