Two Little Coats That Tell A Tale

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 211, 6 September 1941, Page 13 (Supplement)

Two Little Coats That Tell A Tale

JN the old days, though the renovation or re-creation of clothes was closely connected with economic necessity, there were few of us who, when sitting over the prosaic task, could not weave some sentimental tale around the long-suffering material in our hands.

Your impish son has once again worn out the seat of his last pair of school trousers, sliding down the summer slopes of One Tree Hill. Though it is against all your upbringing, bitterly, in the secret recesses of your heart, you admit that perhaps Karl Marx was right when he said that the material and economic aspects of life had most to do with the ultimate happiness of man and womankind. Why couldn't you go out and buy the awful child six pairs at once?

By Bart Sutherland

A dull task, cutting up your husband's old sports trousers. Until the material is in your hands, and you reflect that he had worn them when you were first engaged, and had walked up One Tree Hill together, to behold the city—indeed, the world, at your feet. The trousers have spanned the arches of the years.

Nowadaj-s this re-creation is done on such a large scale for Lady Galway Guilds and the Red Cross that one doubts that many of the busy workers have time to think of "the story in it," beyond expressing the thought that the finished garment might keep some poor refugee, or evacuated child, warm. Yet there is surely now woven into each garment a far higher story of noble traditions and ideas for saving the world. The renovators are, in their way, rc-creating the world.

I doubt if any garments have had a stranger history than -two little coats that were shown to me a little while ago. They were beautifully made, with correct inverted, very tailored pleats down the back. One instantly saw them occupied by the dream children of English pictures. So beautiful was the material: white, colourfully striped with blue and green so pristine, that one could only think of cherished children. I thought that they had been made for friends.

"Oh no," said the lady who showed them to me. "they are for the Red Cross for the little English children. . . ."

She and her husband are refugees from Hitler's Germany. At the very beginning of that dark era they felt the breaking of the storm and went over the border for temporary sanctuary, into Holland. The're to wait and search the bounds of the earth for a home.

"I had that more than twenty years ago," she said to me proudly, appraising the worth of a material, as women will. "I had it for a tennis coat in Berlin; it's been washed and cleaned heaps of times! And then I brought it to New Zealand, and now I'd like them to go to two little sisters!"

"Why, you could write a story about it," I said; and the next time I went to see her she had it written down for practice in English: For Two Little Girls "It happened just over 20 years ago. when my husband came home one day. carrying a big mystery parcel." (Not a bad colloquial touch, is it?) "When I looked, it was a nice material for a tennis coat. I was. of course, very excited about it. One would think, why there is nothing to be excited about.

"But you must know it was just after the Great War; materia! was very scarce in Germany. I was young and liked to be dressed nicely. I made a very pretty coat out of tt. ana wore it for many years, when I walked to the tennis court, having a nice time. ''Then came this awful man in power, and a Dad time started for many people who did not aj?ree with the new ruler. So I left the country with my husband, and my warm coat. We left for Holland, but meanwhile the coat changed its real use to become a dressing gown. I don't know if I loved it more as a coat or a dressing gown. ir * now that the T>eople in r * uffe ring so. and particularly the S V l v. hav ® chan & e <l my mind about keepTn Jt' xl-i iave T made 11 lnto two llule coats, then? dreams 1 sce tvo Nttle girls dressed in

th< ? 111 keep you warm, little ?h« £™ 8 3? f f 2 wfu! war - and that when happy defeated you will be healthy and

This Is written by a lady who ha* left Ne™ZMl'»nrt d thankful to be happy In ness but IHo d 0" no: believe in kindlove •' 5 these coats with my

The idea appealed to hor husband. the' v wrote , an account from he masculine angle. One interesting fact revealed was that the '•hnlp r ♦i am^r ron ?. some mysterious nole in the West. It appears that f°™ e ., of the French soldiers watchho , Rhine , at , that time could Pf'; su , aded not to watch too closely but to observe Kiplinc's wal| nC mv n H 0 ~ he ch L ld: "Watch the nail, my darling, while the centle- • S n The material was indeed material for excitement. RnVtrtmo* ld tak S the P° n of a Phyllis B °t t ome. versed in Gomnn historv f" d r^ a . zl Philosophy, to tell the story '< WI a ouc h of subtlety The Years 0 ' 1 ' 11 Virpinia Woolf, of But we can all sense the dramatic f two people who had to teave and tn U tv ? erlin of their youU! and, m this topsy-turvy world tn «?S5 a VhTs'" rr" MsSl aM The story of the two little cnati seems to me symbolic that the new order of President Roosevelt and Mr Mig,»U ra'iS? fJS SfJvr- 1 ™ pSA &

t & r m r„ e tha" an e men nd ln W ilI Ch landi an ° rd ..' ,n **»uranc« «ves in rSSo& MS3 from °w»r."' Blr