SPIRIT OF "TOC H"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 34, 9 February 1926, Page 7

SPIRIT OF "TOC H"

ADDRESS TO SENIOR CADETS

BY PADEE FIELDEN TAYLOE.

The lecturo Byllabus was resumed at the Community Club, Buckle street, last evening, when the Bey. T. Fielden Taylor, padre of the Wellington "Toe H" branch, addressed 350 senior cadets on "Tho Spirit of the 'Toe H' Movement." The padre was received with acclamation, and was listened to with the closest «ttention throughout.

Mr. Taylor explained that "Toe H" derived its name from Talbot House, which was a clubhouse established at Poperinghe, in the Ypres salient, during the Great War for the benefit of men coming out of and going into the front line. The Ypres salient was a perfect murder hole, whore scores of thousands of men fought and died. Talbot House was a Club like the Community Club, only not so big or so well equipped. Over the door was the motto "Drop Ye All Bank Who Enter Here." There were eight rooms in all—a buffet, a library, a lounge-room, two bedrooms, and upstairs at the top a little chapel where men received spiritual comfort and consolation. It was a rest-house, in fact, where the rule was that everyone had to be happy in it, and where all served one another, giving up a bed to the other fellow who most needed it, and so on., There the spirit was to do anything for anybody, anywhere at any time, and it was wonderfully observed. He hoped they would act up to that, and that in the future many of them would become members of, "Toe H" in the legion of service.

He '-cpt the cadets_ intensely interested .n relating stories of "Anzac," and urged them to put their best into their Army work, because that, more, perhaps, than anything else, would make men of them. ."If you want to be men," he said, "put your best into your Army work, your best into your drill, your best shine on your buttons; give your best discipline on parade, your best duty to your officers and N.C.O.'s, and you will be amazed when you reach Territorial age at what'different men you will be. No one wants you to go to war, but if you do what I tell you, you will find when you reach the age of 21 or 22 that you will be forty times better men than you would otherwiso have been. Believe me the best soldier is the best man in private life. His job is to do his part and to help others. Do yonr job, help someone else in theirs when you can, and where you can, and reap in later life the joy of the knowledge that you did help someone else." (Applause.) Three ringing cheers and three more were given for Padre Taylor, who then led the cadets in singing '' Yes, We Have No Bananas," and "Show Me the Way to Go Home," in which latter song being more "modern," they did much better.

, The hostesses for the evening were Mrs. W. D. Robinson and Mrs. E. G. Pilcher.

Padre Taylor will address further units of the Senior Cadets on the same subject at the Community Club tonight and to-morrow night.