ANZACS CALLING HOME

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLXII, Issue 15242, 7 January 1943, Page 4

ANZACS CALLING HOME

8.8. C. BROADCAST. The greetings of some of the “Anzacs Calling Home” in the recent anniversary programme of that name may have sounded a trifle muffled. If so, th© cause was a “technical hitch” in the human, not the radio, mechanism. “Some party,” as one of the Aussies present confided to the microphone, had been arranged to mark the first birthday of this 8.8. C. series initiated to enable Australians and New Zealanders in Britain to send messages in their own voices, to their folks back home. And who should wonder if emotions were a bit mixed. To face a small mobile instrument carrying one’s voice some 13,000 miles overseas to one’s nearest and dearest, is in itself a stirring event. To do so in company with fifteen others seated around a large tea table, bearing a profusion of good things, not seen in war-time London for many a day, is enough to play tug-of-war with one’s powers of concentration . The onlookers—ourselves in particular—were obliged sternly to remind themselves that only the brave deserve the fare. And these 16 Anzacs made as brave an assembly as the eye could wish for—in the navy blue of the ordinary seaman and th© R.A.N.V.R., the royal blue of the R.A.A.F., and the khaki uniform of the A.E.F. And right in the middle of the circle—where 12 would be on the clock—was a man with greying hair and fine lines that radiated the quizzical smile in his eyes. Instead of the Australian tunic, he wore British ba.ttledress and the' service ribbon of the last war. “Oh, well,” he explained, “I happened to be in England when war was declared, and I didn’t want to waste time going back to join up.” He grinned like a boy as he watched the struggles between the thrill of the message sending, with its visions of home, 13,000 miles away and the call of the good things right here and now. Most of file boys were determined to have the best of both worlds. So what sounded like a lump in “his” throat probably was—the hastilyswallowed ice cream, on the top of the waffle—a dainty known as the “Boomerang Special” (no reflection on its staying powers—merely named after the club). Also competing were hot scones, oyster patties, sausage rolls, tomato sandwiches, fruit cake (sent all the way from Australia, and complete with real icing and n horseshoe) and, a centre piece by Peggy Brown, well-known London cakemaker (formerly of Melbourne). From summit flew the British and Australian flags on either side of the single applegreen candle. Upon its chocolate surface (a makebelieve for the now-prohibitive icing) were five kangaroos. The cake was finished off with a cummerbund of red-white-and-blue ribbon. Two Australians conferred earnestly about the patties. “Well, I’ll try anything once,” said one resignedly. “Did you say everything asked other. But the look of awful doubt on their faces recalled a Punch cartoon of the last war. A hefty backwoodsman, dining at the Savoy. was gazing horrorstruek upon a. bisected oyster patty. “Say, bo’,” he called to the waiter, “something’s died inside my bun.”