THE BRIGHTER SIDE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 5, 8 January 1944, Page 4

THE BRIGHTER SIDE

N.Z.E.F. IN ITALY AT HOME IN A VILLAGE (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) N.Z.E.F. DIVISIONAL HEADQUARTERS, January 4. There is a small, compact village a few miles from the front line inhabited largely by New Zealanders. It could almost be called their own village, for the town major is a New Zealander and the troops outnumber by many the Italian people one sees in the streets. There are narrow .flag-stoned streets which wind over and round a hilltop on which sits the main part of the village. As in nearly all Italian villages, the church is the most impressive building, but there are several others which, for the size of the place, are remarkably good. The houses are of concrete or stone, built right on the street. Most are old two-storeyed places, with narrow balconies, where on fine days women sit placidly knitting while the buildings tremble with the blast of nearby guns and the thunder of heavy military traffic. Many people left the village when it was under bombardment. Evacuated houses have become a welcome refuge from rain and snow for units stationed there and for troops enjoying a well-earned rest from the line. The villagers are friendly to our men. This mornirjg I visited an officer who had been living in a large clean back room where the Italian to whom the house had belonged had provided a comfortable bed with snow-white sheets. They brought him hot water in the mornings, he told me, and swept and tidied the room, asking nothing in return. In this village is a school with the smallest of theatres, complete with stage, balcony, and pit. The theatre is being used now by the Y.M.CA. cinema unit, which screens as many as four shows a day of new releases. The same unit has shown pictures to troops actually in the front line by setting up its plant in nearby houses. The Y.M.CA. has played as big a part here as elsewhere in making life more bearable for units in and near the village by providing tea, biscuits, and other comforts. The soldiers have their greatest popularity with the •children, particularly about 40 who are in an orphanage among buildings occupied by the troops. They had what was for them a royal Christmas when the New Zealanders were provided with more than they could eat. The balance was given to the children, and was the greatest Christmas treat of their lives. The behaviour of the New Zealand troops has been much appreciated by the people of the village, who for many weeks had Germans in their midst. SECOND LOWRY HUT. Through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. T. C. Lowry, of Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, an advance base in Italy has now its own Lowry Hut, with kitchen and office appointments, dressingrooms, stage, and big open fireplaces, in which oak fires blaze every night to drive away the chill of the Italian mid-winter. The original Lowry Hut was one of the best-known institutions at the New Zealand base camp in Egypt, Hundreds of men who have experienced the hospitality of the first are now enjoying that of the second. The hut at the Italian base was completed on New Year's Eve, in record building time, and Lady Freyberg performed the opening ceremony during the afternoon. The building is substantially constructed of stone, and ebvers an area of 30 feet by 70 feet. -It was built by Italian labour under the supervision of a New Zealand engineer, who in civilian life was in practice as an architect in Cllristchureh. The main hall will seat between 500 and GOO men," and has a small stage suitable either for shows or picture screening. The hut is lit by electricity supplied by a camp plant, and is undoubtedly the most important addition so i'ar made to the amenities of the new base camp. Mrs. A. P. F. Chapman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lowry, and wife of the former English and Test cricketer, who managed the Maadi Lowry Hut ever since its establishment, has taken over control of the new hut. She is assisted by two members of the N.Z. W.A.A.C. Division, the girls from the New Zealand Forces Club at Bari taking it in turns to do duty. Women workers in the new Lowry Hut have been given quarters in the nearby residence of the Duke di Sangro. The hut stands next to a big marquee canteen run by the New Zealand Y.M.CA., and the two together are the centre of the advance camp's social life. After the opening ceremony, the Y.M.CA. mobile cinema screened pictures in the evening, and on the following evening the E.N.S.A. company put on an entertaining show. PROPOSALS REJECTED P.A. DUNEDIN, January 7. Meetings of apple and pear growers at Ettrick and Alexandra this week unanimously decided to reject the Government's proposals for the marketing of the 1944 season cropland to refrain from nominating members for the proposed advisory council. A further motion carried was as follows: "That the New Zealand Fruitgrowers' Federation endeavour to secure an agreement with the Government to purchase the apple and pear crop at last season's schedule prices, including minimum grade, and that the difference between last year's loss of £90,000 and the annual average loss of £169,000 be used to increase the Dominion average up to 6s lid a case, the cost of production including the latest increase in wages."