MISS BETTY LORIMER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 281, 26 November 1943, Page 5

MISS BETTY LORIMER

WORK IN BAGDAD From Bagdad, where she is working with the • Y.W.C.A., Miss Betty Lorimer, formerly of Wellington, has sent an interesting account of life there and some of the difficulties encountered in running the club. At one stage, in a week of trials, they had ho water, no electricity, no telephone and no transportation. The kitchen stove "fell to bits" and a kerosene stove could not be bought at any price. However, Miss Lorimer pointed out that the club had a lovely garden, a swimming pool around the corner, and the weather was beautiful, and their good friends, the Americans, lent them a motor car for essential business. She "said the American nurses .loved ■ to come to the club for meals in order to get some fresn vegetables, all theirs being tinned. The interesting thing about Bagdad was the mixture of Poles and British in this club. They mixed well in spite of language difficulties. The Polish girls who had been prisoners and were now released were in the A.T.S. and mostly employed as stenographers. Many of them had learned to speak English quite well. At the time of writing arrangements had been made for Miss Lorimer to go by air to Cairo, a journey that took at least four days by land, to attend a staff conference with Miss Jean Begg.