CLUBS AND HOSTELS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23319, 1 October 1945, Page 4

CLUBS AND HOSTELS

Services Overseas Savings To Men Not the least of the advantages New Zealand service personnel have enjoyed from the policy of establishing clubs and hostels for their benefit overseas has been the saving to them in the charges that have been made for beds and meals. This is indicated in a recent report received by the National Patriotic Fund Board from its Middle Fast Commissioner, Colonel F. Waite. “In all our clubs and hostels in Italy and Egypt,” he says, “prices are considerably lower than in any other similar clubs. In all cases, meals and beds are charged to the soldier at below cost, and in some of our hostels (such as Riccione), all the services, including meals and beds, are free. Local conditions make for disparities in different clubs. Some places we have to pay heavy rent for, such as in Cairo and London, but in Italy in most cases we pay no rent.”

Colonel Waite gives the prices charged at the various centres. “In London, at the New Zealand Fernleaf Club,” he report continues, "the meals cost 1/- for breakfast, 1/6 for lunch and 1 6 for dinner. Beds are 2- a night for other ranks and c - a night for officers. These are low charges for London, and I have never heard any complaints there. The rent for the club exceeds £l5OO a year, and the rates £lOOO. All prisoner of war repatriates are loud in their praises of what is done for them in the United Kingdom.

In Egypt meals and beds in the Cairo Ciuo have always been supplied below cost. Since February, 1941, when the Club was opened, the cost of meals has been lower in the New Zealand Club than in any other. The proof is that we had to restrict the use of the club to New Zealanders and Australians, as we were simply flooded out by British troops, who had to pay more elsewhere for inferior meals. A man can get a cup of tea and a sandwich for two piastres; he can get a cup of tea and ham sandwiches for about five piastres (1/-); or can get a meal of eggs, steak or chicken for 10 piastres 12, -) which is cheap for Cairo. The prices are a little higher in. the officers' dining room.

Costs in Italy “We get our hostels rent free in Italy, and so can keep the cost down. The charges at Bari are 10 llres a meal (6d) and 20 lires for beds (!'-), so a day’s meals and a bed cost a total of 50 lires (2/6). In Rome the charges are 10 lires (6d> for each meal, and a bed costs 40 lires (2/-), which means that for a bed and a day’s stay at the New Zealand Forces Club in the Hotel Quirinale' the cost is 70 lires (3/6). In addition, as in all our clubs in Italy, morning and evening tea is free. Anyone I have spoken to says that the charges are absurdly low.”

The hostel at Riccione on the Adriatic coast of Italy, run by the New Zealand Y.M.C.A., said Colonel Waite, was a direct charge on the New Zealand patriotic funds. It cost about £1 a head a week to keep a soldier there, his four days’ leave costing the soldier nothing. In all the New Zealand Y.M.C.A. and Church Army canteens and tea services in the forward areas in the field, morning and afternoon tea and supper were provided free. When he wrote Colonel Waite said that the cost to the patriotic funds of this free tea and cake service was about £3OOO a month. Colonel Waite also referred to the Lowry Hut at Advance Base in Southern Italy. He said that the patriotic funds provided there free morning and afternoon teas, and free tea and cakes for supper. Maintained from patriotic funds, the Lowry Hut gave a great service. It had been redecorated and was of the greatest value to large drafts held in the area awaiting return to Egypt.