THIRTY AIRMEN MARRY

Southland Times, Issue 24596, 19 November 1941, Page 6

THIRTY AIRMEN MARRY

NEW ZEALANDERS IN CANADA

“VERY CHARMING GIRLS”

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, November 18. Thirty New Zealand airmen who had gone to Canada under the Empire scheme have married Canadian girls. This information was given to the Wellington Travel Club today by the secretary of the New Zealand Air Board, Mr T. A. Barrow, when he spoke on his tour of training scheme centres in Canada. He added that if some girls he saw were a fair average he could say they were very charming indeed. “The conduct of our lads in Canada has been outstandingly good,” he said. “Not one had given any cause for complaint up to the time I left there a fortnight ago. We take a great pride in them as they carry the reputation of this country in their hands and they are exceptional ambassadors for New Zealand.”

Somewhere on the eastern seaboard a “down-under” club, in which Professor Bennett, formerly of Auckland, took a keen interest, was functioning in what was almost entirely a war-time town. Its peace-time population was not more than 15,000, but it had an itinerant population of 25,000 men engaged in war service training. He had seen 750 New Zealanders there and had been informed that if every one of them took ill they could be placed without cost in private homes within a radius of ’ 25 miles of the town. Groups of girls organized dances and fishing pai-ties. Eight out of 10 people there had never heard of New Zealand and Australia before the advent of the Empire training scheme, but the influence of the lads had been such that these conditions no longer existed. Mr Barrow said there was i very large number of New Zealand airmen training in Canada. They were happy and contented. All of them paid a wonderful tribute to their instructors and to the hospitality of the Canadian people. An organization known as the Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire did a lot to entertain the men from New Zealand and these had a big job because up to 100,000 men from all parts of the Empire were being trained in Canada for air crews. At one remustering centre, where the services of 12 expert psychologists were retained, a Maori boy from Dannevirke was head of the school and was very highly regarded.