STRUGGLE TO LIVE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21882, 18 August 1934, Page 3 (Supplement)

STRUGGLE TO LIVE

BUNS AND TEA ON ROAD EX-OFFICER'S SAD STORY In a moving story told in London recently an unemployed major, an expublic schoolboy, described his heartbreaking fight for existence. After spending years in and out of hospital, he found himself "up against it," and with 3s in his pocket set off to # walk from London to Brighton, after a job. " The weather," the man said, ' was frightfully hot, and the road duster. I took what sleep I could by the side of the road, and bought penny buns and tea to keep me going. My one chance depended on looking smart, and on reaching Brighton I turned my collar inside out. Then I was told the man whom I had come to see had left for France." , ~ Returning on foot to London, the exofficer got an introduction to a firm in Bristol, but after walking there he said "the medical examination stumped me." For a while afterwards he was befriended by a lorry-driver, but eventually had to seek shelter in the church crypt at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Then the wanderer was taken into a hostel in Belvedere Road. "Here, at last," said the narrator, "I found the place I had been longing for. The nearest approach is coming out or battle and going into hospital. After the strain, it's wonderful. Here they let fellows like myself live. . "Of course, mv difficulties were chiefly caused by ill-health, but during my wanderings I met hundreds of cases like mine, and, of course, a good many that w£re worse than mine. The hardship really falls on the married man who has a responsibility toward wife and children."