SACRIFICED ALL

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 163, 19 July 1935, Page 2

SACRIFICED ALL

War Veterans IN MENTAL HOSPITALS REFUSAL OF COMFORTS x "Thank God for «ai normality never before appreciated. ’’ It is with that deeply earnest, if unspoken, thought that every visitor must leave the gates of the Auckland Mjenltal Hospital. For an added reason it is with the .thought that every Saturday afternoon members of the Returned Soldiers’ Association in Auckland leave that institution, for they have just been to see those of their comrades who have given their country something that is incomparably more than. life. For more than two years now members of the Grey Lynn and the Auckland Returned Soldiers’ Associations have gone each week unfailingly to the mental hospital foi take to the returned men there such small comforts as they can with the small means at their disposal. It .is a visit that is made ungrudgingly, yet far from gladly, for, while for the men, "out (there” it is the one cha.ngo dm a life that otherwise has no change, for the visitors it is a duty and a sorrow both. It ijs a typical Saturday afternoon. The visitors pass into the first of a long senes of corridors. Occasionally they stop, and with a cheery word here and a smtile and a joke there, they present a seated figure with what they are carrying, cigarettes and a bag of cheap, boiled lollies. Sometimes that seated figure smiles back. Sometimes he jokes. Sometimes he converses, and then the visitors linger awhile. Then is he of their world. But sometimes he is not. Sometimes his look is vacant. Sometimes his eyes do not appear to see, nor his ears to have heard. ISometi:mes his fingers automatically pluck at the gift he receives. Then dioes the cheery word to die suddenly, and the laughter that was intended never comes. Scene In the Courtyard The visitors come at length into a courtyard where it is a relief to be able to see the sun. The warder unlocks a gate in a high, closely-built paling fence. He calls. But the call was unnecessary, for the men behind the bars have seen. This visit has been awaited since last week. They crowd round the visitors. Their clothing is diverse, for clothes do not matter here. Some are unshaven, for here thait also does not matter. With almost childish haste they clutch what has been given them —five or six cigarettes and a penny bag of lollies. There are other corridors. There are other figures. There are rooms with little slot windows into which one does not enter. There are rooms from which the visitors emerge with faces suddenly drawn. Finally, there is one more ward, the worst. In one room there are 3orm.e 30 men. One is frantically knotting and unknotting a piece of cord. Another wants <to write, for anyone who wishes, a cheque for £2 or £2,000,000. A third, once a commissioned officer renews an acquaintance made in France with a visitor who was a child when the officer gave his reason for his country. There is a fourth, from whose face nothing can take a refinement. There is a. fifth, who says all the blankets have been taken from his bed. There is a. sixth, a seventh, an eighth, all with their story—but one feels that this is enough. There are sights which are best forgotten.