THE PRIME MINISTER’S MEMORIES

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3183, 28 May 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE PRIME MINISTER’S MEMORIES

SIMPLE THINGS LIVE LONGEST. Mr Ramsay Macdonald, the Prime Minister of England, was entertained by his fellow Scotsmen recently, gave the following two memories which his future biographer will surely not overlook: It is a very hard frosty morning. You have got up while it is still dark, and we have trudged a mile or two along the frost-bitten road. We get into a potato field, where that extraordinary machine which used to go round knocking up the potatoes is in full swing. lam leaning on a basket into which the potatoes are being gathered, and find it difficult to keep the tears out of my eyes on account of my frost-bitten hands. Sitting sometimes on the front Government Bench, and allowing my thoughts to wander, that incident comes back to me. Here is another memory. It is a field in harvest time. A machine, a very early embodiment of the modern reaping machine, is clattering merrily along. A score of people are laughing and singing, busy binding the sheaves and putting them into the stooks. A young woman, dressed in a print frock, with a sun hat on her head, stops and holds out her hand to a youth of about three years of age. We walk home together through woods, bathed in sunshine, where the birds are singing, happy, holding each other’s hands. That is a second memory that will live with me for ever.