REACTIONS TO WAR

Southland Times, Issue 24210, 21 August 1940, Page 7

REACTIONS TO WAR

Beauty Of Northern Spring ENGLAND REVISITED BY MISS N. ENDERBY The following letter, written from Lincolnshire, England, by Miss N. Enderby, formerly principal of St. John’s Girls’ School, Invercargill, while recovering from an operation, will be of interest to her former pupils and friends in Invercargill. At present I am with my sister, who is very glad of my company, now that raids have started in earnest, as she has two dear little children, and her husband is out and away a great deal on A.R.P. duty and agricultural committee work. We are near the coast, and obviously very much in a danger area. I shall stay here until, or unless, we are compulsorily evacuated and as I get fitter I can do more and more odd jobs on the farm, and at least feel useful. All plans for coming back depend now more than ever on the conduct and progress of the war. I shall “enlist” my services as soon as I am fit. DEFEATISM NOT TOLERATED It is very heartening to us to have such constant assurances of loyal help and strong support from the Dominions, especially now when we stand alone. I listened to a New Zealand cabled report last night, and it? was good to feel things are being organized. It is all a question of time. Poor France. How blind—and wilfully selfish and neglectful we have all been—determined to have our pleasures and liberties — our luxurious standard of life. We are willing enough now to forgo everything to save our country—but alas! goodwill is not enough. I am proud and glad to be here. As Mr Duff Cooper said last night: We are at least all together here, soldiers and people, to bear and fight and endure together. People are fine when they are up against it—but we have been, and. many still are, woefully apathetic to the urgency of the case. People cannot learn to guard their tongues, to realize that nothing must be wasted, neither time nor goods, and that all must work and strive. A few more air raids and no doubt we shall all be wide awake if we are here.

It is not nice to be awakened at night by the crash of bombs and droning of planes overhead, but it is less nice to see the damage done and to read of deaths and injuries to little children and poor people. But I love the ironic and witty but phlegmatic comments of the country people, and the sort of casual and arrogant defiance of the populace as a whole. We can’t and don’t intend to envisage defeat. We “suppose we’re up against it, but suppose we can stick it out, and teach that Hitler something!” That is the attitude. But among the fighting and assistant services, and the factory workers there is the most magnificent courage, and wonderful spirit of comradeship and devotion. STIRRING WEEK-END

I shall never forget the Dunkirk week-end. I was in hospital and we had many batches of wounded brought in, and one heard first-hand stories besides the wonderful incidents recorded in the papers, which can never be matched for heroism in the whole of history. And all was done in such a cheerful, good humoured and orderly discipline—such discipline as the machine-like Germans could never imagine. Our men take responsibility and show nerve and initiative and do the most amazing things, men who. in their private lives have often been insignificant nobodies doing some routine and uninspired work. War might be good if it were not for the cruel and insensate destruction.

On the other hand, in large towns like London on the one hand and Cheltenham on the other, one is sickened by the many and useless displays in. the windows of the great shops, especially of clothing and elaborate foodstuffs, confectionery and so on. It must stop soon—but in London last week women were shopping as busily as usual. Theatres and picture houses were all running and generally packed, except at a place like Stratford. I went to the New Shakespeare Theatre, but it was almost empty, because people cannot now run cars and buses and trains are very scarce and inconvenient. Now the raids have started and the war is here in earnest, no doubt many places will close.

In the country there has been tremendous cultivation and the ploughed up grassland has produced some good crops. We are having a long, dry period which is good for the hay, but the com and roots and vegetables badly need rain. ENGLAND’S SPRING We have had the most lovely spring, as if England was showing herself at her most beautiful, to make us love her more before she has to suffer. The cold and bitter winter killed many plants and trees, but the survivors have flourished and the flowering has been such as one rarely remembers—such snowdrops and primroses and bluebells and in these woods here, such millions of lilies of the valley. The hedges were white like snow, first with blackthorn, and later heavy with pink and white may; the chestnuts thick with masses of pink and white candles; over fields yellow with buttercups, and now the poppies are showing in the corn, and the hedges are asmother with honeysuckle, and cow parsley and rosebay willowherb—and all our lovely flowers. I’ve been drunk with the beauty. I was lucky enough to see it here in our gentle, soft Lincolnshire countryside, and then in the Cotswolds with its bigger folds and lovely old stone villages—and at Whitsuntide I punted up the Thames to Marlow and passed through its soft green fields with May hedges. I was a few days in Oxford during early spring in lovely weather, and the gardens were a dream. I had other visits planned—to many schools and also to Cambridge and St. Andrews in Scotland, but I’ve had to cancel everything, and now it must all wait till after the war.

I’d love to describe scenes and preparations and all the business one sees of trainings and schemes for defence—but it must all wait. Suffice it that the spirit of all is undeterred. In fact people are full of wrath—a grand and righteous wrath at the very idea that Hitler should set foot here. Unfortunately old shotguns, pitchforks and scythes are no longer effective weapons as they might have been in the Armada days. Still, we are much heartened by our Winston’s speech last Sunday. He makes us face the facts, spits out a bit of humorous sarcasm, stings our enemies, Hitler and Mussolini, and makes us hold up our heads and stick out our chins.