HOLIDAY WOUNDS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 112, 11 April 1929, Page 10

HOLIDAY WOUNDS

WINTER S-PORTS CASUALTIES. SCENES AT VICTORIA STATION. Two ambulances and a long line of closed cars packed with cushions greeted the arrival of;the Continental expresses at Victoria Station, London, on February 17. It was the home-com-ing of the winter 'sports casualties from Switzerland. More than 500 passengers disembarked from two frost-covered trains that rolled into the terminus within twenty minutes of each other. The “victims” hobbled painfully and slowly 1 through the crowd. A group of ski-ers emerged from a Pullman coach. The women, in bizarre Arctic trousers, colossal greasy boots, and leather jackets, carried packs on their backs and skis on their shoulders —all except one, who moved gingerly and unhappily along on new varnished crutches, » heavily bandaged foot suspended precariously above the ground. Two pretty, boyish looking girls wig) limped along the platform together received special consideration from the bustling' Customs officials and left the station among the cushions of a luxurious saloon car. A young man in plus-fours marched along cheerily with one arm in a sling. A few minutes later he was welcomed affectionately by a girl whose silk stockings did not conceal the bandages round her right leg. “You, tool” she exclaimed. She was obviously an earlier “casualty.” One man suffered from a raw abrasion on his cheek. A girl in a green and white toque grimaced woefully each time she put her foot to the ground. ,Frenchman, who wrung excitedly the hand of an embarrassed Englishman, broke suddenly into profuse apologies when he bumped against a young man who was nursing a tender arm.. The scene was not without humour, despite the delay in jostling through the Customs barrier, the jam of cars leaving the station, and the cold mustard fog that hung like a pall. The fellowship of the “wounded” was unmistakable : gloomy faces contrasted vividly with gay holiday costumes; sports ge'ar crutches, and splints were jumbled weirdly together. “We cannot get enough cars into the station now to handle these cripples,” one of the attendants said—when the rush was over. “The trouble with English people is that we do not know how to ski or bob-sligh.” He stepped aside to make room for a robust young man with a grin—and a heavy stick.