To Prevent “Rusty Mind” Among Men With Forces

Northern Advocate, 27 May 1941, Page 9

To Prevent “Rusty Mind” Among Men With Forces

For a considerable time the National Patriotic Fund Board has been alive to the danger of men with the fighting forces returning to civil life “rusty-minded.”

The value of libraries as a means of helping to obviate this his been fully recognised and constitutes one of the main reasons for the establishment of libraries at the camps in New Zealand and at the base camps overseas and for the setting up of a War Library Service to provide these camps and also the transports and naval units with regular supplies of books and periodicals. Mrs. Fraser Helps The board, however, is anxious to do more in the direction of keeping the men’s minds active and encouraging the men to pursue or take up useful studies. The Secretary of the board (Mr G. A. Hayden) has announced that in this work valued assistance was being given by Mrs Fraser, wife of the Prime Minister, whose keen interest in libraries and in all deserving institutions and movements for the wellbeing of others is well known. Mrs Fraser is a member of the National Patriotic Council, the advisory body, but the work she is dong with a view to seeing if improvements can be made in this important field is of a personal and voluntary nature. Mrs Fraser has found time already to visit Burnham Military Camp and the Air Force Stations at Wigram and Harewood, as well as the Lyttelton Forts, in the South Island, and is to rrfake similar visits to camps and fortress stations in the North Island. Her observations and recommendations will then be the subject of a reDort to the conference to be held in Wellington on June 5 of the representatives of the provincial patriotic councils, the National Patriotic Council, and the National Patriotic Fund Board.