WHERE "NEW" AND "OLD" MEET

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23895, 24 August 1939, Page 21

WHERE "NEW" AND "OLD" MEET

UNUSUAL SYDNEY CLUB In a cafe near Wynyard Station, Sydney's most unusual club meets every Friday night (says a writer in the Sydney Morning Herald Women's Supplement). Membership costs threepence a week. It is a club where " new Australians, recent arrivals from Europe who have come to settle in Australia, meet and make friends with "old Australians," sharing with them the culture they have brought from the Continent, and assimilating in return the spirit that is Australia. The purposes j! the club are to help the new arrivals to meet local people, and to bring about their more rapid assimilation into the population. So far, according to Miss C. L. Wedgwood, principal of the Women's College at Sydney University who, with Mr C. B. Billings, of Toe H, started the club, there has jeen no difficulty about finding enough Australian friends for the new people. Most of the "new Australians" are professional men and their wives and families, and Australians of a similar type have come from the University, the educational and professional services, to offer the hand of friendship and to open the doors of their homes to the new arrivaL. So successful has the club venture proved that, according to Miss Wedgwood, it is now becoming difficult to distinguish between the new Australians and the '' old." Europeans are doing their best to look like Australians, and Australians are trying to look Continental, with the result that the following conversation has been reported from a Friday night gathering:— He: You are from Vienna, 1 suppose?

She: No, I'm sorry, North Bondi. Do 1 look foreign?

He: I'm so sorry. She: Oh, don't apologise. I wish I was from Vienna You must have had a gruelling time getting here? He: I did. I'm from Deewhy. No, I'm not a refugee, either. So far the ;lub membership has been about one-quarter Australian and three-quarters overseas; but it is hoped to bring the local quota up to half, so that all the prosepective new citizens will have friends. There are no formal introductions. Many of the members wear their names written on paper pinned to the lapels of their coats or to their dresses, and that is sufficient to break the ice.

Make poached eggs a special by serving on a thin cheese sandwich toasted on both sides and spread with butter.

A frame covered with cheesecloth and fixed over the pantry window will ventilate the pantry and keep it clean, especially if you live in a 'smoky or dusty suburb; leave the window open and make the frame as high as the window.