Fun and Games

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 7, 10 April 1944, Page 8

Fun and Games

All work and no play won’t make Jack a dull boy here. In fact, there is much more chance of freshening yourself with a game than in peacetime casual farmwork.

The recreation hut is a marquee. A table with magazines, and chairs and a billiard-table, furnish it. Golfers play best on this last because of the ingenious and difficult hazards on the cloth. As the balls are bigger than the pockets, scoring is simply a matter of cannons. Outside there is a concrete cricket pitch with matting, stumps, bats, balls, a tenniquoit court, net and quoits, and on the camp-site there happen to be two asphalt tennis-courts, a football ground, and a basketball court. I saw also a pack of cards, table tennis set, and medicine ball.

Actually the use of these things is small. Boys working all day and often not back in camp until eight o’clock (sometimes nine-thirty) are too tired for play.

But when it’s needed, well it’s there.

Once a week, usually in a nearby hall, A.E.W.S. shows an entertainment film, to which the public may come if they wish ; in the week-end the local people reciprocate with a dance for the boys. On wet days A.E.W.S. has answered calls for training films, helping to fill usefully time that might be largely waste for the peacetime worker.

Overheard at a Dance : “ Do you know, we have to thank the Army for all these people. Before the camp came, only about four couples used to turn up ; and now girls come who have never been here before. And the local boys come just to see the soldiers treat the girls right ! ”