CHANGING SCENE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 113, 15 May 1942, Page 6

CHANGING SCENE

OVER MORNING TEA

NOW QUIETNESS RESTS (By EKAI) Quietly, almost imperceptibly, the city scene has changed since those "piping days of peace." Some of the changes, of course, are obvious. New buildings, planned and begun before war swept, roaring across the world, are now completed and occupied. The skyline, when, in clear daylight or on a moonlit night, it can be seen, has changed. The appearance of the people thronging the streets has changed. Khaki, navy blue, air force blue (and the red-piped blue of the E.F.S.) have largely replaced the more varied male garb of civilian life and taste. Feminine clothing still has kept the independence it enjoyed within the bounds of up-to-date design, but the more colourful of fashion's creations are tempered now with the attractive utilitarian neatness of W.A.A.F.. Women's War Service Auxiliary. Fled Cross Transport and Women's National Service Corps uniforms, with, more occasionally, the blue or grey of Y.A.D. uniforms. All of that is as it should be, as it would be expected to be. Some of the changes, though, are not so obvious.

Here Was Change

This morning a tearoom proprietor remarked. . . . "It is not like the old days now, is it?" The writer shook his head, and memories flooded back to people in that tearoom in vivid contrast with the scene of the present. The room was empty, or practically so, and therein lay the major difference.

Pre-war days . . . and the hour of 10.:!0 a.m. in that same room. A buzz of voices, a cloud of smoke, a cheerful clatter of cups and saucers. Those of us who patronised that room formed almost a club. We were of like type, mostly young, and interested in the things about us and in the thoughts and experiences of those who gathered with us.

We grouped ourselves in little cliques (if you like, though it is a horrible word of almost sinister meaning), crowding sometimes so thickly about a selected table that the cliina and the silver almost overflowed the table top. It was one of those tearooms, you sec. where every man had his individual teapot and hot water .pot, his individual scone order on an individual plate. It was a place of personality.

Individuals in one group had contacts with individuals in other groups so that we were all more or less known to one another, and might, ever and anon, take our place with another group. That would, however, be only on occasion and for a special reason.

Where We Gathered

Mostly we kept ourselves to ourselves. By unwritten law, tables were bespoken at certain hours. There was nothing to prevent others from taking those tables if they wished to do so, and had arrived first—but it just wasn't done. Habit directed our footsteps in a particular direction, and if the table was already occupied by strangers (regulars wouldn't.trespass . . . Heavens, no!) it brought a moment of mental shock.

To-day, as the teashop proprietor had remarked, it was different. She was still there, of course; not just the proprietor, but an intimate. She had known us all by name, and one by one (as armed service called us) she had remembered us. knitted us socks, contributed to the parcels, asked after our welfare. The "us" does not include the writer, but he cannot, in memory, separate himself from the rest of the group. Her first assistant was still there, also . . . she who. with accepted and expected familiarity, called all of us, impartially, "Dear."

For the rest, it was changed. The two of us who had'" been in that morning, the first time for manv a long day, had sat at a table in the far corner. That was (in those days) the preserve of a group of young lawyers. "Our table," over against the wall, was empty . . . and we left it so.

This morning a remark brought nostalgia . . . and a hope that one day . . .

But it may not be the same again The scene has changed.