HUSBANDS LEARN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 197, 21 August 1942, Page 4

HUSBANDS LEARN

DOMESTIC VIRTUES

EFFECTS OF LIFE IN ARMY

One of the incidental effects of army life is to improve the domestic value of husbands, active and prospective, beyond the mere masculine accomplishments of wood chopping, lawn mowing and odd carpentry. Wives and fiancees may be surprised to know just how many of the domestic virtues their menfolk acquire in the army, especially in a camp which has all the conveniences of a modern town—except women to do the domestic work.

The process is particularly noticeable in New Zealand's biggest inland camp, where, except for the nurses and the hospital cooking staff, no women are employed. In other camps nearer tov/ns and cities the soldier may evade his responsibility to the undarned sock and the buttonless shirt by passing them on smartly to a sympathetic woman, but here he must do the job himself. His technique may not be according to rules for a start, but he soon gets the idea that knitting and splicing are separate crafts. Quartermaster's Order He has to learn, because the quartermaster enforces a strict order that socks and garments will not be replaced at the public expense unless genuine efforts have been made to keep them in repair. When they degenerate through fair wear and tear and show signs of having been under the needle, they are, of course, replaced from store.

The first lesson that the army gives the raw recruit is the very domestic one of how to fold his blankets and lay out his gear, and from his first morning in camp he is broken into the routine of sweeping out and tidying up before he eats. His first meal brings the realisation that there is nobody but himself to do his washing up. In feminine circles Monday is traditionally washing day. In this camp it may be any day, for in every battalion area there is a permanent washhouse, with continuous hot water, tubs and electric iron facilities. Electrically-driven fans circulate the hot air in the attached drying rooms. These services are among the full-time ones carried out by the camp quartermaster's staff. Do they sound better than having to get the copper going on a winter's morning, and then mayhap helplessly watching the wind and rain play with the washing for a couple of days?

The soldier who cares to pay can, of course, send his washing to a private laundry outside the camp, or he may engage the services of one of the semi-professional "washermen" who augment their army pay by taking in washing. Do Own Laundrying However, the majority of the men do their own laundrying, and you may on occasions hear discussions on the merits of rival soaps and washing powders, or the proper way to handle woollens, which would amaze wives and mothers, who imagine that man takes no interest in the laundry except when he can't find a clean shirt.

Admittedly, wives who attempt to capitalise the domestic habits which their husbands acquire in the army will encounter difficulties. If the husbands have been in the big North Island camp which suggested this article, they may, when asked to do the washing or other household chore, reply that things were different in camp. To that the astute wife may counter: "Give me the same facilities, dear, and I don't mind doing it myself. Maybe that will be one of the post-war methods of getting all modern conveniences added to the home.