YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 24, 29 January 1945, Page 11

YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN

DISABLED SERVICEMEN LEARN TO DO USEFUL WORK

A KORERO Report

IN a quiet backwater of one of Wellington’s busiest thoroughfares was a .vacant section, and here, a little over a year ago, was an Army vehicle park. The surface was churned into a sea of mud by the spinning, sliding wheels of heavy trucks, and the whole area had a dejected and desolate look. To-day there stands on this spot a modern two-storied building, clean lined, well lit, air conditioned. A considerable piece of ground remains, and workmen are engaged in transforming this into a bowling-green. This is a training centre of the Disabled Servicemen’s Re-establishment League, a body of citizens, mostly returned servicemen, who built up an organization to help those servicemen who were so disabled as to be unable to maintain themselves. Pensions are available, certainly, but no man wants to live out his life “ pensioned off ” if he feels that he can still do some

useful work in the community. The League contacts men who are on economic pensions and offers them the chance of passing through its vocational training school and of taking their place again as producers and wageearners. Some of the funds are supplied by the R.S.A., and the Government gives a subsidy. Most of the staff are returned servicemen, many from this war, and trainees soon drop into the easy, familiar atmosphere of the Services. A strong effort is made to make every man feel that, in spite of his disability, he is Still a valuable member of the community. As you walk through the double glass doors you enter a neatly appointed modern office. There is some furniture awaiting disposal : this has been produced by the training centre. The workmanship is excellent, and shows careful and skilled craftsmanship.

Furniture like this is hard to come by these days, and you learn that it is already sold, mostly to returned men setting up homes. A door on the right leads to an unusual feature in a vocational training centre : this is an artificial-limb factory. The League has become connected with the manufacture and fitting of artificial limbs only recently and has extended this work in its new quarters. Here are dressing cubicles and a “ walking race,” rather like a small skating-rink, where men may try out artificial legs and get the “ feel ” of them. There is a plaster room, where accurate plaster

casts are made of stumps : and there is the workshop itself. This is a large well-lit room fitted with strange shapes in wood, leather, and duralumin —-artificial limbs in the process of manufacture. Some are complicated arrangements of springs, hinges, and universal joints designed to do almost everything that a normal limb will do, others are more like the wooden “ peg-leg ” of ancient story. Each limb is designed to meet the needs and preferences of the man concerned. Some, for instance, prefer wooden “ buckets ” (the bucket is the part of an artificial limb which fits on the stump), and a man is busy cutting buckets out of willow. Another man is working at a lathe, and it is only

on closer inspection that we realize that one hand is a cunning contrivance of metal designed as a tool-holder. In this shop a man learns a trade which will support him, and at the same time is able to help other disabled men, whose problems he must understand and sympathize with. You pass on to another room sweet with the resinous smell of timber and varnish. This is the cabinetmakers’ shop, where disabled men learn the whole art of joinery and cabinetmaking. There are a dozen or so carpenters’ benches and an assortment of power machinery : an elaborate workshop, you would say, but it is pointed out that if a disabled man is to hold his own in the labour market he must not only be as good as the average craftsman, but better than most other men ; for this reason his training is thorough, and he learns the intricacies of all the processes and machines used in the trade. The work being turned out here is of a uniform standard of excellence, and to the experienced eye the “ finish ” of each peice shows clearly the work and care that has gone into it. In another room we find men making baskets —work for nimble fingers this. Before the war such things were made mostly of cane and sea-grass, but wartime conditions have prevented the importation of these materials. So, nothing daunted, the centre carries on with split supplejack and osier willow. Arrangements are being made whereby ample supplies of willow will be grown for future work, but at present some of the willow is being used in its green state. The baskets made range from small shopping baskets suitable for the housewife up to the familiar Army pannier. Upstairs (there is a lift for disabled men) you enter first the jewellery shop. Silver comes from New Zealand mines at Waihi, and paua shells from Stewart Island. These provide the materials for the distinctive and ever-popular silver and paua jewellery. A wide variety of articles is made here ; on the bench, for example, is a polished set of silver spoons with handles inlaid with paua shell; on another bench

a man is making silver tie-clips. At the other end of the room the rough shells are being put through the preliminary cleaning process. The silver comes in in its rough state, and is melted and put through the rolling mill at the centre. The next room contains the leatherwork shop, where all kinds of plain and fancy leatherwork are taught. Here are hides of various finishes and colours, and a host of manufactured articles, ranging from women’s and childrens’ slippers to week-end bags, and heavy embossed leather hand-bags. Next door again is the boot-repair shop, where disabled men may learn the ancient trade of the cobbler. This is possibly the shortest course available — a quick learner can pass through in six months. In another room three men are at work making strange looking contrivances of coiled rope. These are dust shields which fit into the bearing boxes of railway vehicles. The centre has a contract with New Zealand Railways for their supply. Yet another room is full of crutches waiting their leather padding. These are made by the joinery department downstairs and are sent up to the leather-workers to be finished. Two or three more rooms are empty as yet, for this is a growing organization and must have room to expand. • It is hoped to start a watch making and repairing school. in one room, and a printing class, complete with machinery and equipment, in another. A large

sunny room at the end of the building is fitted up as a cafeteria where trainees may have morning and afternoon tea and lunch. Opposite is another room which is to be a library and recreation room. There are eighty-odd servicemen at present in training, working from 8 a.m. till 4.30 p.m. Most of these men will, on completion of training, leave to take up their place in industry. Some who are incapable of doing this will be supplied with home workshops where they can at least feel that they have something to do. The shops run by the League are its “ show windows ” and sell the products of such home workshops as well as those of the training centres. The League is, as is obvious, a growing concern. It has at present branches in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Invercargill, and training centres are being proceeded with at Christchurch and Auckland. Other activities are undertaken at other centres such as a horticultural training plan, clog-manufacture, a mop-factory, and so on. The objects of the League are summarized under two headings : — First : Every man, however great his disability, shall be given the opportunity of achievement in some form and the satisfaction that comes from such achievement. Second : To convert to economic usefulness the efforts of the disabled men, by the production of useful and saleable products.