NOTES FROM LONDON

Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 100, 25 October 1916, Page 9

NOTES FROM LONDON

Writing under date Bth September, The Post's London correspondent sends the following items of interest:— The Misses Clara Rogers, N.Z.V.S. (Wellington and Rangiora), Ada Ballantine (Wanganui), and Dora Murch (Hawera) have come to London from Egypt. They have lately been working in the Esbekieh. Gardens Canteen, started by the V.M.C.A. with the assistance' of the voluntary sisters and local ladies. As many as 6000 men were served on the busiest days, and the canteen supplied a much-needed want. Later they went to Tcl-el-Kebir to work at another canteen, opened under the patronage of Lady Godley by Miss Rout's organisation.

Mrs. A. de Castro (Wellington) is in London after a. year's work in Egypt among the troops. Latterly she was at Ismailia, where she started the tearooms and soldiers' club; for some time she^ superintended the British Soldiers' Cafo in the Ezbekieh Gardens, and in addition had an active part in the formation of the Empire Nurses' Club in Cairo and the Nurses' Convalescent Home at Helmieh. Mrs. de Castro hopes to be well enough to return to Egypt later; but if this is not possible she will find war work in some other direction.

Miss Violet G. Barker, N.Z.A.N.S. (Peel Forest) has transferred from the hospital ship Marama to the New Zealand General Hospital at Walton, where she expects to remain till the end of the war. Her brother is serving in France.

Miss Constance C. Holmes (late of the Wairarapa) has, since the beginning of the year, been acting as inspector of female labour in the Army Pay Offices; she was asked to take up this work by Sir C. Harris, Assistant Financial Secretary to the War Office. But Miss Holmes is still connected with the good work which is being done by the Belgian Refugee Food Fund. Of this fund Miss Holmes was hon. secretary on its inception in the very early days of the war. The acting hon. secretary is Mrs. Wesley Hall, formerly of Sydney, assisted by Lady Williams, who has been hon. treasurer since the work was started. The New Zealand chairman of the Belgian. Refugee Food Fund is Mr. B. C. Holmes, of Wairarapa, brother of Miss Constance Holmes.

Miss Agnes Allan, Q.A.1.M.N.5., is now nursing in one of the hospitals in Mesopotamia, whither she went at the beginning of August from Bombay.