ANZAC MEMORIES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 2

ANZAC MEMORIES

A NEW ZEALAND NUBSA New Zealander who sailed with the Australian troops at the beginning of tho World War was Miss Sybil M. Greenaway, of Timaru, whom the Melbourne Herald recently interviewed. She trained at Toowoomba General Hospital, and joined up in Brisbane in April, 1915. She sailed on May 15, 1915, from Melbourne, on the Mooltan, with the third detachment of Royal Army Nurses, who were going as rein forccments to No. 1 General Hospital at Heliopolis. Sister Greenaway related the following experiences:—

“We disembarked at Suez on June 15, 1915, and immediately entrained for Cairo. En route, we thought we would buy some fruit from the natives. We passed down the money for some juicy oranges and water-melons. The train began to move. The natives kept the fruit. Tho hospitals were at Heliopolis, some miles from Cairo. We lived in a largo house on the desert with the I.Bth Light Horse camped just beyond. It took us some days to settle down to this new life of heat and flies. At this time there were train loads of wounded coming in from Gallipoli. Things had happened so rapidly one could scarcely realise it possible. We settled down to work and took our pleasures as they came, and they were many and varied. Each day was f.ull of happiness, and so the months flow bv.

“Days off from hospital were always spent motoring out to see some old temple, village or ruin, or in the native bazaars (always including some Digger able for the trip). Miss M. Graham, of South Australia, our mation, gave the boys who were well enough to get out of hospital for an afternoon many billy picnics. “Two of us were out riding one afternoon with some iriends from the artillery camp in the desert near Matareih, when suddenly —as from nowhere —appeared an Egyptian wit: bis donkey laden with pamers full of ripe tomatoes. Our horses shied, swerved and galloped off into a green oat field, but were soon controlled. The poor old donkey also took fright,: quickened his step somewhat, and, in doing so, scattered tomatoes in all directions, much to the disgust of the ‘Gippo.’ “A day off in Cairo was a great lure. It so happened that one day we two were wending our way up to the Citadel and Mosque Mohammed Ali, when in the distance we saw hundreds of Egyptian police, all in white uniforms, lining the road. It was the day of ‘The Procession of the Holy Carpet’ on its way to Mecca. We hired a ‘gharry’ and told the driver we wanted to see the procession. He took us down into the native quarter by side streets, and here we sat with natives climbing all over our conveyance, jabbering away all the time. Fortunately we had lots of pennies in our bags, and some sweets to keep them satisfied. We did not sight another white person all day. The day was a holiday as far as the native population was concerned. There seemed to be thousands of them. They were even up on top of the houses and hanging from the. windows all along tho streets.”