PETER PAN'S PAGE

Timaru Herald, Volume CL, Issue 22133, 29 November 1941, Page 9

PETER PAN'S PAGE

■fnrif Those who bring Sunshine into tho lives of ofhers r ■ j ffl cannot keep it from themselves. I |S

DEAREST LITTLE PEOPLE, You have heard so much lately about the gallant fight of our Russian Allies, and the help which Britain and the United States are doing their utmost to send them. I wonder if you have ever realised how vast is the undertaking of getting supplies and war materials safely to Russia. One supply route, and perhaps the least known of them, has a special interest for us. It was built only four years ago by Mr A. M. Hamilton, a former South Canterbury lad, and I’m proud to add, a friend of my childhood. It is the shortest possible link between British and Russian territory, a mere 300 miles from Iraq to the Trans Caucasus. This road through Kurdistan is a remarkable engineering feat, for it runs through mountains standing on end, like bristles on a brush. What makes it all the more remarkable, is the fact that Mr Hamilton was the sole European on the job. Can you imagine what his life must have been? For five years of blazing summer heat and icy winter blasts, he lived a solitary white man amongst numerous native tribes—Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, Turks and Persians. And many of these native tribes were fierce and warlike and would kill each other with little or no excuse. Yet this gallant engineer worked serenely on, teaching his workmen the uses of machinery such as they had never seen; blasting his way through what seemed impregnable rock walls; designing and building bridges to span precipitous canyons until, to the wonder of the natives, a road began to form. And how the natives loved him—so much so in fact, that when the vast undertaking was finished he left secretly during the full swing of a day’s work, saying no word of farewell to the vast army of workmen whom he had led for so many years. He who had faced dangers so often and so unflinchingly, found it difficult to face the parting from his native friends. He was back in South Canterbury some three years ago, and many and thrilling were the tales he told of his life in Iraq. “Weren’t you sometimes afraid?” I asked as he recounted his adventures with hostile tribes. “There was so much to do I just didn't have time to be frightened,” he answered with a smile. And now supplies and tear materials are rolling along his road—the Rowanduz road as it is called—into Russia. Truly New Zealand has reason to be proud of the tvork of one of her sons upon this distant border. I hope, Little People, that this story of a former South Canterbury lad, will prove an inspiration to you all. , Lots of love to everyone, FROM YOUR OWN I I