IN MERRY MOOD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 247, 18 October 1937, Page 9

IN MERRY MOOD

SIR lAN HAMILTON A RUEFUL CONFESSION LIFE OF A LEGIONAIRE In his merriest mood General Sir lan Hamilton flew to Oban recently—“in an ironclad very like a hip bath with steel wings,” he told the British Legion. His job was to “lend a hand to the women’s section” who had organised a bazaar to raise funds to build a legion hall. But, characteristically, Sir lan made a rueful confession. “It might have been expected that I would mind my step when I approached the fair sex,” he said, “but no—l got careless and made a slip. “Speaking at Birmingham a short time ago to the old South African war veterans, most of whom don’t get the old pension till 70 and who are being turned out of their jobs because they are too old at 63, I said they must often wish they were spinsters, as in that case they might get the pension at 55. “That was all—but the postman staggered to my door the next morning with letters —not love letters—from spinsters. “Some pitied me and other despised me—it was frightful.

“Both as an old soldier who has beeij in many wars and as a Legionaire who wants to see the end of all wars, I am bound to give you some advice at the present moment when I see the danger of the workingmen of Scotland being led astray by bosses who mean well, but who seem to me to be too previous. Pickled Octopus “Some day perhaps the time may come when all men will be so much alike that the dominant and most natural factor in military alliances will be similarity in political outlook. That time is not yet. “Similarity of heart and stomach makes a far more binding affinity between countries than similarity of partisan politics. “I am a hardened old soldier who durin ga year’s service with the Japanese army has lived for weeks and

weeks on a little box of flabby rice, occasionally, as a treat, enriched by one small pickled octopus —but these things make different blood in a man from beef, or even sausages and mash. “We Legionaires are mostly working men. We have lived in billets in France, Flanders, Italy. The farmers' wives treated us like blind mice—and cut off our tails. “But a day came when we occupied Germany. The Army of the Rhine will never forget returning to their billets cold and wet after a manoeuvre to find slippers warming for them by the stove and no charge, whereas in previous billets they used to be charged tuppence each, and the whole farmhouse warmed at their expense.”