N.Z. WAR GRAVES.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19612, 7 May 1929, Page 15

N.Z. WAR GRAVES.

IN MOTHER COUNTRY. TENDED BY BRITISH WOMEN. In urging the necessity for a women's branch to the Returned Soldiers' Association, the April number of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association "Review" prints an interesting extract from the "British Legion Journal," concerning the work of British women who care for the graves of New Zealand soldiers whose last resting-places are in the Mother Country. The extract is as follows: '•Since the Women's Section of the British Legion undertook to visit the graves of Now Zealanders buried in this country, many interesting reports have beeu sent in, which, in due course, have been forwarded to the High Commissioner for New Zealand. These reports come in every six months. "In the majority of cases, those who have visited the graves have found them beautifully kept, and where there are a great many graves, as in the Tidworth Military 'Cemetery, Hampshire, there is a resident caretaker who looks after the one hundred resting places of the New Zealanders who lie there, la some cases, visitors have reported that no headstone has been put up yet —only a small wooden cross, which was "placed there originally to mark the spot—and the Imperial War Graves Commission has been informed. There have been reports of neglected* f raves in a few isolated places in outhern Ireland, and these have all been attended to as a result of the visits paid. 'ln certain instances, it was found that relatives of the dead soldier whose name was sent to the Women's Section were looking after the grave, and its care was naturally left in their hands. Many of our visitors kindly took photographs of the graves for transmission to New.Zealand. "One of the branches in Ireland had the crosses on the graves painted and re lettered, and everywhere the help given has been most generous and thorough. It has been greatly appreciated by the High Commissioner for New Zealand, and it must be comforting te the relatives in New Zealand to know that the men who rest so far away have not been forgotten."