Nordic Nations Have Splendour At Their Doors

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23366, 23 September 1950, Page 6

Nordic Nations Have Splendour At Their Doors

The unending panoramas of peaceful waters and island-studded bays, headlands smothered in pine forests and the lovely sites chosen by people of means for their out-of-town homes made Sweden a place of special delight to Miss Eerys Ball, in the course of her recent tour of the Continent, on which she embarked from London by way of Holland.

Her work under the auspices of the British Council in hospitals and training institutions in the United Kingdom had given Miss Ball numerous contacts with nationals of the Western European States, and the anxiety of these people or their relatives to extend hospitality to the New Zealand student produced an embarrassing number of invitations. In addition to her British Council contacts, Miss Ball also found herself in touch with Rotary members, who jumped at the chance to perform a friendly gesture to one closely connected with Rotarian activities in Gisborne. Swedes In Optimistic Vein Since the average Swede's ideas about entertainment included the spreading of handsome meals either in the home or at well-equipped restaurants, the tourist had plenty of opportunity to observe that the people north of the Skagerrak are not lacking in foodstuffs In fact, there was little that they did lack, according to what she saw. and the general spirit of the people of Stockholm was solid and settled in an optimistic vein. Like their neighbours of the Nordic countries, they are proud of their land and anxious that visitors should know something of its productivity. By contrast with the countries which suffered occupation by the Germans during the late war, Sweden is extremely rich in material culture, and her handsome and well-designed public amenities and fine industrial developments are sources of pride. The situation of Stockholm on an island-studded harbour, through which innumerable channels can be taken, makes (he city a particularly picturesque one for tourists. In the matter of site it has a big advantage over Copenhagen and the ports of the Low Countries whose coasts in general are flat and uninteresting. Ruhr Bewildering Shambles Miss Ball’s days wore full of activity, often prolonged into the summer nights in a twilight almost as light ns day. She saw in Denmark, Holland and Belgium many signs of war scars, but it was in a short-cut across Germany through the Ruhr Valley that she was most deeply impressed by war damage. ''Hour after hour of desolate, shattered industrial cities; havoc and desolation, ruined acres and acres of fac i tories. houses, railway stations, bridges: i dirt and dust blackened skeletons of i buildings: shabby, lined, slouching j people; miserable little groups of huge ' bleak windswept railway-station plat-

forms; children In the oddest assortment of clothes; railway porters and guards in such an array of ex-army uniforms —the once magnificently productive and impressively gigantic industrial concerns of the famous Ruhr now a bewildering shambles ! It's just too immense and too ghastly to des cribe ” Miss Ball writes. "England has nothing to compare with what Germany has sufTered in war damage. The people look old and tired which is not to be wondered , lt There is a nice young German lad nn \v in nur carriage. He laughs and is lolly l but op is the brst German 1 have ssen smile or laugh.