“ANY GISBORNITES?”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21978, 23 March 1946, Page 4

“ANY GISBORNITES?”

INQUIRIES JRE WARDED. HOTEL-KEEPER IN DEAL

FORMER P.B. RESIDENT

Throughout the latter part of the late war a small hotel in Deal, on the East Coast of England, was the popular haunt of many New Zealand servicemen of all arms of the forces. Night after night, when the social rooms were full of uniformed men, the host made the rounds with one question, “Any Gisborneites?”

ft was not until after the German collapse, when men released from prisoner-of-war camps on the Continent began to stream back across the Channel, that his inquiry met with success. Two men, one of whom knew Gisborne from long years of residence here and the other having relatives in this district and frequent occasions for visiting them, answered his question.There followed the first of many sessions in which the_ news-hungry hotel-keeper refreshed his memories of Gisborne, grown a little uncertain from long absence but still warmly lit with affection for his old town.

The hotel-keeper was Mr. Bert Green, a former employee of the Gisborne Times newspaper and an expert linotype operator, who spent some years here before the 1914-18 war and went abroad with the First N.Z.E.F. He fought on Gallipoli and later served in Britain with a headquarters unit there.

He married an English girl, the daughter of an hotel-keeper, and later took up hotel management on his own account. In later years he has been living at Deal, a holiday resort which boasts an especially bracing climate, and which, incidentally, has been the training centre for more than one New Zealand Rugby team touring in Britain. Mr. Green will be well remembered by many older Gisborne residents, who will learn with satisfaction of his present well-being.