“ EGGS 4/- PER DOZEN ”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 61, Issue 4358, 15 November 1940, Page 8

“ EGGS 4/- PER DOZEN ”

BUT SOLDIERS GET THEM CAMP LIFE FOR NEW ZEALANDERS (From Official War Correspondent attached to N.Z. Forces in Britain) October 24th. Eggs here are four shillings a dozen; but at any of the fourteen social hall canteens run by the New Zea - land Y.M.C.A. in our area of frontline England, and operated by district women volunteers, the charge is only fivepence for a poached egg on a full slice of toast, and a large cup of tea. This and egg and chips, also fivepence inclusive of tea, are the most expensive snacks to which the soldier can treat himself.

Some of the other dishes available are: Welsh rarebit, 3d; baked beans on toast or macaroni on toast 2d; sausage and mash 3d; spaghetti and tomato, 2d; a ham sandwich—New Zealand railway refreshment room size, costs 2d; a paste sandwich, 3|d; and a helping of bread, cheese and pickles, 2d. Small cakes and a square •of ginger cake are each one penny; so is bread pudding eaten as cake. Fruit cake, known here as slab cake, costs twopence a large slice. In every case tea is free, even if a man wants tea alone—but he never does.

Although all have been organised and are supplied by the Y.M.C.A., not more than three or four of these canteens could be kept going every night were it not for the selfless and enthusiastic co-operation of the local women. Practically all the premises have been lent rent-free. Some are parish halls, some women’s institute

halls, some large rooms in houses or commercial buildings. One is the large upper room of a public house. Shortly after our troops moved into this district, the publican sent for one of the Y.M.C.A. field secretaries. “The boys have been telling me about you, and about what you do for them,” he said. “We don’t work along the same lines ordinarily, perhaps; but I’d like to help you. There is that room up there. It is yours to do what you like with. I’ll give you the lighting, and a fire; and I give you my word that no drink will ever go up there, nor on to the stairs leading up.”

So patently genuine an offer was accepted at once, the more so since there was no other suitable room available for a reading-writing-games centre. The secretary went to inspect. “Would you mind,” he asked, “if we put in a ping-pong table?” “Put in what you wish,” said the publican; “but you needn't bother about the ping-pong table. I will get one for you. And you may run a canteen here, and sell tea, cakes, cigarettes—whatever you want to sell.” That room is full every evening of the weejc.

District women, if they have not already an organisation capable of taking charge, soon set up directing committees to arrange rosters and hours of attendance. Some of them are there every night; every helper gives at least one evening a week, or, if unable to go in the evening, an afternoon of preparatory work. At the busiest centre, where there is a list of 56 helpers, the committee has refused toi allow one of the 56 to work after dark. She is a dear old lady of 80, who says it seems only yesterday since the New Zealanders were in England last war, and who stubbornly declines to be done out of helping them. So she goes along every afternoon to cut sandwiches. Five afternoons a week on an average German bombers are wheeling overhead while she works.