COMMUNAL LIFE

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 September 1940, Page 11

COMMUNAL LIFE

NIGHTS IN TUNNELS. LONDON, August 28. Residents of part of the South coast of England are calmly settling down to a communal existence now that they have reorganised their lives to accommodate themselves to daily air raids and shellings. • Many undamaged houses shelter two families, and “what’s mine is yours” seems to apply generally. Housewives take turns at cooking, cleaning, and shopping—shopping is generally done about dusk, when there is usually a pause between raids. Milkmen and bdkers, anticipating the usual morning raids, deliver their wares in the evening. When night falls all descend tunnels running into the cliffs. These are roomy, quite warm, well ventilated, and allow qf babies being brought in in prams. Friends place mattresses and deck-chairs together, and deposit clothes, vacuum flasks, and breakfasts, generally wrapped in brown paper.

A warden who is stationed at the entrance' to the tunnels, awakens the men on time. “I get ’em to work every morning,” he said. “I am very similar to the Ritz hall porter, only my customers do not leave out their boots.”

Although this part of the coast is deservedly nicknamed “Hell’s Corner,” very few of the residents have left their homes. A fisherman said: “My.people sat here and awaited invasion for centuries, and never got it. Well, here I sit and here I stay.”