Foundation Stone Laid By Duke

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27502, 9 November 1954, Page 6

Foundation Stone Laid By Duke

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, November 5. "There we are," said the Duke of Edinburgh after he had rapped a gavel made of wood from H.M.S. Victory on the foundation stone of the memorial wing of the Victory Ex-Services Club near the Marble Arch. The Duke, who was cheerfully informal during the ceremony of laying the stone, Contributed a dollop of cement so vigorously that he stepped back instinctively to dodge the splash. The funds for the new wing to the club, which has 20,000 members of all ranks from a field-marshal to a private, were raised in London and the Commonwealth.

The New Zealand Returned Services’ Association contributed £5OO, and this, with the amount raised by the efforts of Brigadier L. W. Thornton and Mr S. Dark, of the New Zealand Army Liaison Office in London, totalled more than £2400. The Duke congratulated "all those concerned with the plan” to raise money, which he described as "a very difficult business.” , He also remarked: “I don’t know that I am very good at laying foundations, but I hope the rest of the building will be better laid.”