"SIGN OF THE KIWI"

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 102, 27 October 1934, Page 13

"SIGN OF THE KIWI"

SLING CAMP TODAY

LITTLE TRACE REMAINS

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) LONDON, September 20.

Except for two or three- huts, practically every trace of the camp oceujjied by New Zealanders at Sling has now disappeared. But there still rcinalus prominent on tho hillside overlooking tho sito of the camp the huge white figure of the kiwi.

How long this would remain if it were left untended it is difficult to say. Possibly, in a year or two the weeds and the grass would have spread over the vast face of tho bared limestone. It is the duly of someone in the village to keep the weeds away,and his small retaining fee is paid by a certain wellknown, boot-polish firm. Tims, the glory of the past is perpetuated.

So the. inhabitants of Sling live under the "Sign of the Kiwi." -Perhaps not all the natives are accurate ■in their pronunciation. At least one insisted on calling th& figure the "Kye," so perhaps it is known more or less generally as the "Kye," or perhaps the "Kye-Wye," the latter pronunciation being very often heard in other places than Sling.

Well, the hillside holds its relic of war days, and all who pass by along the road from Bulford to Tidworth may see the emblematic bird with the letters "N.Z." beside it. To some it may recall the prowess of the New Zealand warriors of nearly twenty years ago; others again, may think it has something to do with the early Britons or the Druids, while others may merely think of boot polish. AN EX-AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER. Beneath the sign on the site of the old camp there' arc three army huts. That is all that remains of t.lm Nov.' Zealand section of the camp. Further west there is a civilian village of old army huts. For ouc of them niado into a single house, a rent of 10s is paid to the "War Department; for each of two houses under one roof Ss is paid. There arc pleasant gardens in front of these houses, aud the inhabitant's foregather in the Civilian Club, which was once a sergeants' mess. In the near future, however, permanent military barracks and quarters are to be built at Sling, just as they aro at Tidworth.

While wandoriug round this scene of former glory someone mentioned that there still remained in Sling one who was camped there as a soldier nearly twenty years agp. I sought him out in his galvanised iron cottage 'with its trim little garden. Ho was not a New Zoalander, but an Australian. Thus, I found the only human link with the past. Mr. B. E. Smith, of Brisbane, of tho Australian Expeditionary Force, returned to Sling to marry. He remained, and resumed his trade as a painter. His eldest daughter is almost grown up, anc all through the years he has continued to live under the "Sign of the Kiwi."