WAR WORK.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17283, 26 September 1916, Page 3

WAR WORK.

A 'VARSITY VOLUNTEER.

RASPBERRY PICKING

(From a Lady Correspondent.)

LONDON. August 15

It was with mixed feelings that my chum and I handed in our names to the Labour Exchange lady. We had just, dono our second year's at Glasgow University, and were anxious "to do our bit" in the Long Vac. This seemed a work which was urgent and oue which wo could tackle without overmuch quaking as to skill—raspberry picking. . • The preliminaries wcro all too 60on over. A notice arrived calling on us to attend a meeting at the Exchange. There Mr . Hodge—the pioneer of the raspberry growing industry at Auehterarder—gave. us a full .description of what wo wero. asked to undertake. Buchanan Street Station and two tram loads of us weald have been the next scene had wo' been shown at the "movies" Two hundred women, all told, off to Auchterardcr! "We .wero a mixed lot, but all more or less connected with the teaching profession. Our littlo crowd wero 'Varsity students, and there were Training College students, elementary school teachers and representatives 01 most of the specialising teachers, as wo shall see. For thoreby hangs tho tale of the Domestic Science teacher which all but led to—but I must tell the story in order. When we arrived at ttyj disembarkation centre wo found waiting us some agricultural carriages, in plain English, carts. One, labelled "Arts, follow me," we discovered was to be car lode and guiding star. Wo followed it for a couple of miles along the highroad and for another mile by a rough road through the raspberry fields, the whole troupe of us, ours one hundred strong tramping it, gaily anticipating tho tea which lay ahead and waiting us. _ It did—tea and bread and margarine, doorsteps of it, and "cookies-' anghce buns, by way of a relish, very hard and not the kind that self-respecting Scottish—or New Zealand—housewives serve up so daintily and easily. However, that was all in the day s work. We didn't expect to' be lodged in the Ritz. Then wo took up our quarterstin tents with rows of beds, eight per dormitorv. Most of us brought our own bed linen, for we'd been advised to do this. What we hadn't visualised befoic wero the earwigs—swarms ol them, whole battalions. But we were doing our bit. Trifles like that would not deter. , 1 \fter a. Sunday when we prospected, climbed tho neighbouring Craig Rossic. we really started to "go on the land at 5.30* a.m. on Monday. The men on tho estate acted as knockers up_ by banging on-our corrugated iron alls a big tattoo, or rather ' revalley, as tho Tommies call reveille. . Wo had all provided ourselves ,■ th strong boots and overalls, and tne "wis? virgins" wore stiff cuff protectors and lingeries* gloves. Else hey soon acquired an interest m the indnstry more painful than frmtru'-to wit, a large crop of prickles not only on hands! but right up the arms. Poisoned huge wa!s a risk we had perforce to run, and the half-baked doctor in charge of us-a mcdacal student-had Q allotted us our-places. We had to pick the fruit down one side of a row o/canes and up the opposite °ide of the nest row. Halt way down we pfaced a big bucket, and slung, at our waists we carried a billy can painted white inside. Into these wc picked the iuicy fruit—sometimes on. oui knees sometimes bending down, and .always for us, new chums, back break'''itilMt" bad its compensations! There was the joyful day on which I broke my own record, I weighed in 701 b of fruit at Jd a lb, whole three and fivepence hard earned, coin, for one day s !wrd labour from 6 to 9, 10 to 1, and2to 5 ... a n ' ne noxir " a yWell this you can imagine was no short cut to fortune. We hacln t expected it to be, but we thought this left too little margin between the bs 6d we paid for our keep in dormitory and margarined doorsteps. Wo had a little strike, quite a little one but came out with a fifty per cent advance to Jd. i We deserved it, for on that glorious 701 b day we were on the crest of a wave. Raspberry fruit picking is not so simple as it sounds. The canes arc picked over when the first berries ripen, lhat first crop is neither so good nor so large as the second, that again re not so good as the third, the bumper cro K . Tho pickings that follow tail off in quality and quantity to such an extent indeed that it was*impossible even.at 3d a lb to make more than a miserable wage. The custom'is then to advance the rate; in our case, we wero 'or pickings after the fourth paid id a lb. We were an Oliver Twist-like crowd, and another of our demands was granted before we reached the striking stage. The arrangement made beforehand was that wo were to pay 8s Gd a week for our board and lodging and lots did not make that amount by their week's work. Our incipient strike for a lower rate was nipped in the bud by a concession to 7s a week.

What wo got was:—At reveflle, tea, washy stuff too, and one rice biscuit; breakfast, either porridge, followed by tea and bread and margarine or tea, bread and margarine and a boiled egg; dinner, soup—very thin—a very small portion of tough meat with two potatoes, or meat and potatoes with milk pudding; tea, with bread and margarine; supper, cocoa of the thinnest, wateriest and another rice biscuit.

This was good enough on paper; and actually we were so hungry that we could eat '•' onytbing" . . . .'

like the baby in the story. Tho said story relates to a slum grandmother who was sobbing out her grief to tho health visitor about the death of her six months-old grandchild which was such a good baby and—perfection of perfection—could oat "onytbing." No

doubt tho coroner had his views about the subject. As 1 sav we ate the food but none of us would give the cooks a certificate that thoy could " write home about." The meat was tough always, and tasteless; the puddings wero too often modelled on King Alfreds cakes to be appetising. What leir irony to the position was that tiie cook.-. were volunteers from domestic science classes!

But it's an ill win' that blaws naobody guid 1 We spent all—and " some " more—in the town on supplementary meals. The favourite high tea bad as its piece de resistance ham and eggs. On tho spot there was a little store where wo could buy chocolate, biscuits, lemonade and such like hofs d'oeuvres to trim our tasteless official menu. Wo each and all washed up our own dishes on benches outside the dining hut. The ablutory arrangements wero' of the severest war time- economy—tin basins %wo provided in tho shed, and wu fetched .the water ourselves from the taps. So some of us hardjer ones instead of fetching water went to it. A nico wee burn ran through the estate and we bathed thero in the early morning. This an " extra turn " in out day pleased us mightily when the weather .vaa fine as luckily" for us, it was most of the timo.

* Tho one exception was on a certain Saturday. A terrific thunderstorm came on. We had to stop work and fly to tho dormitory sheds, and then, so "heavy was the down rush, we, had to make trenches to carry the water off, else our sleeping huts had been invaded. 'Wo felt as if wo were in training, at least for camp life if not the firing line, and it was quite like Salisbury Plain and the training camp at Sling. There was another resource—to go into the town' to get a bath—a case of banging a "saxpence" in one fell swoop; but it was worth it, hot water laid regardless.

Wo had our .intervals from berry picking. Tho dining hut contained a piano. Impromptu concerts and even a dance or two, with a few of the men billeted in tho neighbourhood, Black Watch men, alas not in kilts I Excepting, I forgot, one or two from Franco on leave They told us that their pet' name among the poilus was the "corps do ballet." Even wet days* had their attempts at recreation ; the musical instruments^—combs. Our "dorm" in fact had an all star cast of comb artists, anfl our rendering of "Land of Hope and Glory " was the joy of tho camp--at least of those with any sense of tho beauty of art

What exactly this experiment proved it would be difficult to discover. It would take an economics student to do that. To our poor muddled and " only arts" students we seemed to be sacrificed to make a jam manufacturer's profits. I fear the experiment to him will havo been made at the cost of future concessions in wages a little nearer in level to a New Zealand minimum wage based on a sum to ensure a decent standard of life without supplements from extraneous sources.

We did it cheerfully enough. Was it not for the nation P And with our boys in tho trenches we'd do much more than this at need. But being as we aro with some modicum of brain tissue Concealed beneath our boudoir caps—yes there were in our hut—we could not help but ask at whose need? But the problem will be folvod in that time we look now for soon—after the war. Just now wo are just

" Doing our bit."