BLACKOUT NEED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 121, 24 May 1941, Page 7

BLACKOUT NEED

WHERE THERE'S LIGHT

RAIDING AIRMAN'S MOTTO

Writing to a cousin in Auckland who had questioned the advisability of the blackout, a Londoner whose home on the fringe of Richmond Park was destroyed in an air raid strongly urges the need of darkening the city. He writes:— "I don't quite see eye to eye with you over the blackout. Certainly it is one of the most irritating, depressing and unhealthy features of the war, but even in London and— as you mention it, Auckland—l am

convinced it is essential. Our own pilots tell us so. You can imagine the job we had blacking out that 'lantern' house of ours with its huge spread of windows—every one shut on a summer's night to keep the curtains from swinging. I had just completed a complicated ventilating system when she went tip. Here in Devon we have had frames made covered with roofing paper that fits the windows exactly. They onlv take a second to put up. and then you can turn on full lights and bej sociable without jumping out of your chair at every knock at the front door. A raiding airman's motto seems to be, 'Where there's light! there's life,' and he lets a couple goi for luck. I had complained to a! neighbour about his lights two; nights before we got hit. They are not very good-shots. I should keep! Auckland as black as pitch—and' •camouflage Uie high white buUd-i Unes."