TOUR OF AIR FORCE BAND

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 30 August 1945, Page 2

TOUR OF AIR FORCE BAND

PROPOSED VISIT TO AUSTRALIA Wellington. This Day. The proposed visit to Australia—expected to be undertaken shortly—of the R.N.Z.A.F. Band about which some public protest has been raised has created feeling in the band itself. Among its 60-odd members, it is learned in Wellington, there is dissatisfaction and concern that Flight Lieutenant Gladstone H. Hill, the founder and up to some months ago musical director of the band, will, as far as is known, not accompany them on their tour.

Flight Lieutenant Gladstone Hill, it is stated, is not to take the band because of his medical re-boarding following injuries he received in an aircraft accident. His new grading is stated to bn the samp as that of a number of members of the band who will be going to Australia. Several member are asking why Flight Lieutenant Hill is not being allowed to go with them.

It is understood that when it was first announced that the band would be going to Australia some members objected, but were inftfrmed that as members of the Air Force they would have no ontion. La*er. they were told, it is stated, that those who did not want to go could stand down and several members did so. But as they are bound to the Air Force for the duration of the war and six months, the majority feel they might as well go to Australia with the band as remain in’ the Air Force in New Zealand for some indefinite period.