CURRENT NOTES

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25954, 7 November 1949, Page 2

CURRENT NOTES

Miss Doris Edwards. Sparks road. Halswell. who attended the International Council of Nurses’ conference, in Stockholm. Sweden, is expected to return to New Zealand in the Aorangi this week.

As guests of Mr Cranleigh Barton, many friends and members of the Hard of Hearing League were entertained at his home or Clifton Hill, Sumner, on Saturday afternoon. The visitors spent most of the time in tL - garden. They also admired the pictures and antiques collected by Mr ~_rton in the countries he has visited.

The 1946, 1947 and 1949 All Black. Mr H. F. Frazer, who married a South African girl on the eve of the departure of the team for New Zealand, left Wellington on Friday for Melbourne to meet his bride. Mrs Frazer was unable to accompany her husband back to New Zealand in the Dominion Monarch. but accommodation was obtained for her in a later ship. A flower show was held recently by members of the Cashmere Garden Club. The judges were Mrs O. M. Miller. Mr A. McNeil and Mr S. G. Prebble. The sum ox £lO has been given by the club to the Horticultural Society’s building fund.

A contract for the 1949-50 season of ballet as principal dancers with the State Opera House in Brussels has been obtained by Mrs Paul Hammond, ormerly Miss Peggy Sager, of Auckland. and her husband. Mrs Hammond has been a ballerina for some years, first in Australia, where she married Mr Hammond, and for the last three years in England. She toured England. Scotland. Norway and Sweden with the Metropolitan Ballet Company.

The Ist Christchurch Battalion of the Girls’ Life Brigade recently held an evening social for governing committee members and friends. In appreciation of their services sprays were presented by the adjutant, Cap* tain J. Ritchie, to the battalion president. Mrs Hugh Graham, and to the battalion secretary, Mrs E. B. Hardy. The programme of musical items, games and competitions was arranged by the commandant. Major B. Nuttall, assisted by Captain P. Good. A bring and buy stall raised £8 15s towards the travelling expenses of officers attending the Dominion annual conference to be held next January in Napier. A musical evening was held at the Sign of the Takahe by the Federated Business and Professional Women’s Club recently. Many members and friends were welcomed to the gathering by the president (Miss G. Walker). A musical programme was presented by Mesdames Colthart. K. Swallow, and Scott, and recitations were given by Mrs W. Hindle. Miss W. K. Thiele thanked performers for their splendid programme.

For some time Miss Mattey Fraser, of Karori, Wellington, has been on the staff of an aboriginal girls’ home in Cootamundra. New South Wales. The home is financed by the State Government. and run by the Aborigines Welfare Board. Most of the girls are halfcastes. Miss Fraser wrote recently that of the 40 girls, whose ages ranged from three years and a half to 15 years, only two were full-blooded aborigines. Most of the girls at the home were sent there by the Courts because ‘heir parents either could not or would not look after them. They had a great complex about their colour. Miss Fraser said she tried to explain how proud the Maoris were of their colour, but it was of no avail. “Black” is a word the staff dare not use in the girls’ hearing. It is a favourite word of their own when referring to each other, but members of the staff, as whites, must not discriminate.

Every member of the Eritish Sadler’s Wells ballet company now having a great success on Broadway. New York, is an ambassador for British wool textiles, according to the New Zealand Wool Board. Their woollen suits and dresses worn at receptions and other public functions have excited widespread comment and admiration in America.

The post-graduate course for nurses had now completed 21 years of existence and about 502 students had taken the course since its inception, said the Deputy-Director-General of Health <Dr. H. B. Turbott) when speaking to nurses at their diploma presentation ceremony at the post-graduate nurses’ school in Wellington recently. “The New Zealand post-graduate course is recognised internationally, as it is one of the post-graduate schools approved by the Florence Nightingale International Foundation,’’ Dr. Turbott said. “One Australian has already attended the course on a bursary from the foundation, and application has been received for another student next year.” There was also to be a student on a Fulbright scholarship from America next year, who would be attached to the school, he added. The Indian Government had sent a student this year, and another would be coming next year.