PATRIOTIC PARCELS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25798, 20 March 1945, Page 6

PATRIOTIC PARCELS

DISTRIBUTION IN INDIA An increasing number of letters expressing appreciation of patriotic gift parcels is being received from New Zealanders in the Indian theatre of war, savs a statement issued by the National Patriotic Fund Board. For some months past Mr C. R. C. Gardiner manager of the New Zealand Insurance Company in Bombay, in his capacity of commissioner for the board in India, has been doing everything possible to make contact with New Zealand service personnel. The letters not only express thanks for the parcels, but gratitude for the fact that New Zealand is operating such a system. “It was a source of delight to open the last parcel at a spot where even water was scarce, wrote a major of the South-east Asia Command. “To taste some New Zealand fruit cake was quite a thrill for other members of the mess who cannot receive things like that from England and Scotland.” A signaller said in a letter that he had not tasted oysters since he left New Zealand in 1938 until he received a parcel, while a corporal serving with an Indian unit wrote to say that he had seen only two New. Zealanders in two years and a-half, and so it could be understood what the parcels meant to him. . Arrangements have recently been made to send Mr Gardiner some New Zealand tinned foods.