HOLY PLACES SEEN

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3151, 3 August 1942, Page 3

HOLY PLACES SEEN

VISIT PAID TO NAZARETH SOLDIER’S LONG DRIVES MATATOKI SOLDIER’S LETTER Following are extracts from a newsy letter sent by Private C. D. Denize from the Middle East to his wife, of Matatoki. Private Denize, writing under date 4/5/42, says: — “I have sent you some snaps of Tel-a-Viv and Haifa, two of the places I have had the luck to visit during my driving jobs. Since visiting these places I have also been to Nazareth twice and have seen the place where Jesus worked in His carpenter’s shop and also the place where the Holy Familv lived.

“This Biblical spot is high up in the mountains, and as I drove through the city it gave me a queer feeling as if I was going back into the ancient world. There are some ancient buildings here, you can be sure. Isn’t it strange to read in the Bible of ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ and then to be right on the very spot mentioned! I love Palestine, and in my opinion it comes second to dear old New Zealand.

“It gets very hot driving big trucks and it is so hard on the eyes. The other day the temperature was up to 122 degrees —just think of that! Longdistance runs are a common thing for me, and I sometimes do 80 or 100 miles before lunch and think nothing of it. I get tired at times, but can always sleep when my work is done. I have had a lot of experience lately, and have been driving a truck with the wheel and gears on the left-hand side —left-hand drive, they call it. This left-hand business is good for over here, as one drives on the right-hand side of the road.

“All I do at nights is to have a cold shower and trot off to the pictures. Life here is perhaps a little harder than in Maadi, and I long for the day when a big boat will be carrying me slowly up the old Waitemata. .