SOLDIER SPIRIT

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 264, 3 August 1932, Page 9

SOLDIER SPIRIT

Workless Returned Men PARAPARAUMU CAMPS Making Best of Conditions NO COMPLAINTS FOUND “We went ent looking for complaints, but we could not find any,” said Mr. J. Spence, secretary of the Wellington Returned Soldiers’ Association, when reviewing the visit of seven members of the executive to the two camps for unemployed returned soldiers at Paraparaumu on Sunday. “One complaint we heard was that the men did not get mustard or sauce with their meat.” A few men did not have sufficient underclothing, but the association liopes to be able to supply that with the help of the Red Cross.

“The results were very satisfactory,” Mr. Spence said. “The camps are excellently sited, No. 1 In Beach Road, and No. 2 in Soldiers’ Road. The tents are dry, clean, and tidy. There are two men to a tent, and a fireplace in each tent.” There was no shortage of wood, the men gathering their own from the nearby farms, and there was a plentiful supply of water. Shower baths had recently been erected in No. 1 camp, and would shortly be available to No. 2 camp also. The cooking was done by the men or by cooks selected from |hem. “Dinner was being served when we arrived at No. 1 camp, and the menu was steak and kidney pie, pumpkin, boiled and roasted potatoes, pudding, stewed apricots and rice, and tea. There was certainly no shortage of food,” he said. Mr. Spence said that the Returned Soldiers’ Association was going to make an effort to get a battery wireless set for each camp, so that the men would be kept In touch with the outside world.

“We noticed particularly the large number of elderly men In the camps, and also that men who had come to us for relief before they went into the camp, and were despondent and disgruntled, had changed and were much Lott or ” Old Soldier Spirit “The old soldier spirit, the determination to make the best of conditions and make themselves comfortable is much in evidence among the men in these camps. For example, the men in No. 1 camp had augmented the shower provisions by the use of some oil-drums, under which they built a fire, and had hot showers.” The camp foremen, Messrs. Marr and Beere, who exercised a great deal of tact and common sense, had told him that the men could get leave at any time, if they had two or three days’ work In town, and could come back to the camps immediately they bad finished. The two camps at Paraparaumu ar® the only two soldier camps in NewZealand, Mr. Spence said, but the Wellington association hoped that the movement would extend to other parts of the Dominion. He did not think tfkat any more camps would be required In Wellington. Speaking of the conditions unde? which the men worked, Mr. Spence said that the men were divided into gangs of 20, who elected their own foremen. The members of a good gang might earn 10/- to 15/- a week above their accommodation. Each man was supplied with a pair of good gum-boots, and If he required extra blankets or boots he could obtain them by a system of easy time payments. Visit to Children’s Camp. The party also paid a visit to the children's health camp at Otakl, and Colonel A. Cowles, In giving a summary of the conditions there, recalled that the building had been the King George V Hospital from Rotorua. The girls were in one wing and the boys in the other. The camp was now working at full capacity, and could not take more children because there was no accommodation for additional staff. Some of the staff worked for relief rates of pay, and others did so voluntarily. The camp had an excellent matron in Miss CrolL The Wellington Returned Soldiers’ Association had made arrangements for two contingents of 10 ex-service-men’s children to go into the camp for a month, and had given £2O for clothing for them. The children who would benefit under this scheme were to be selected by the Division of School Hygiene.

“All the children at the camp were quite contented, and wero doing remarkably well,” Colonel Cowles said. “One child had put on half a stone in a fortnight. There was an abundant supply of toys, although the boys might like another football or two, and there was plenty of sea bathing in the summer. A school will also be started, so that the children will not fall back in their lessons.”