WIVES AND CHILDREN

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 4, 29 September 1944, Page 3

WIVES AND CHILDREN

Twins Included In Party From England Heavy rain was falling as anothci contingent of wives who met their New Zealand husbands in England arrived recently in the Dominion, but few of the 15 children brought dissolved into tears as they were subjected to photographers' flashlights and official welcomes. The small travellers, all of preschool age, included • a set of blue-eyed twins, John and Anthony, who, at Ave months, had ■ the distinction of visiting Buckingham Palace, when their father, Flying Officer J. A. Moller, was awarded the D.F.M. , ~ , The twins, now mine months old and bound for Hawera, were, accompanied by both their parents on the voyage. Their mother, who comes from Letchworth Garden City, on the outskirts of London, spent two and a half years as an ambulance driver in the W.A.A.F. ' Another mother with two children was Mrs. C. J. Norris, a munitions worker from Hastings, England, who was met by her husband, a former sapper. One of her small daughters will celebrate her second birthday next Sunday, and the other is only five mouths old. Air'Force and Army wives from all parts of England were in the party. They bad all been engaged in war work or branches of the women’s services, and were preparing to make their homes in all parts of the Dominion Most of their husbands preceded them, but three couples arrived together. The only R.A.F. wife who had no family to worry about was Mrs. A. J. Outfield, who was accompanied by her husband, a New Zealand flight lieutenant, now returning to Mount Eden, Auckland, after four and a half years’ service with a night-fighter squadron. Mrs. Cutfield, who comes from Liverpool, was a canteen worker attached to the N.A.A.F.L (Navy and Army Air Force Institutes) at a big bomber station. Flight .Lieutenant and Mrs. J. K. Climie brought their son James Anthony, aged three and a half. Mrs. Climie is a doctor and hud been working at a Loudon hospital, specializing. in children’s diseases.

The sole Navy wife, Mrs. S. F. Corrick, was a New Zealander. She left Auckland five years ago and was on the staff of New Zealand House in London, where she married her husband, a lieutenant in the R.N.Z.N.V.IL, who is fetill overseas.

The arrivals were impressed by what they had seen of the United States when the ship docked at New York, and they were billeted in Connecticut for a fortnight. A quiet corner in the casualty clearing station was reserved for the smallest'* members of the party. - Attended by St. John.obstetric aids and Red Cross nurses, they dozed in warmed cribs and cushions while the other youngsters.lunched with their parents in the long dining-room, which was bright with kowhai aud daffodils.