PUBLIC PARADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 226, 23 September 1940, Page 11

PUBLIC PARADE.

FINE MARCHING. WOMEN'S SERVICE CORPS. It was a case of "Tramp, tramp, tramp the girls are marching," when the Women's National Service Corps paraded in public for the first time on Saturday afternoon. Headed by Te Akarana Girls' Silver Band, smart in their brown and gold uniforms, the girte set off from the Drill Hall in Rutland Street, and went at a swinging pace up Wellesley Street. Then they turned into Symonds Street, and marched with the steady precision of trained soldiers, over Grafton Bridge and along to the Domain.

The column was headed by the commandant, Miss D. M. Hawkins, and consisted of three full companies in correct military formation.

The officers, in their smartly tailored uniforms, and the members of the corps in their trim khaki shirts and skirts, looked extremely business-like and efficient, and the standard of the whole parade must have been most gratifying to those responsible for training the girls.

In the outer Domain, after some drill in formation, the parade was inspected by Major Blackett, who took the salute as the girls marched past. They then followed the same route back to the Drill Hall.

After the parade had been formally dismissed, Major Blackett congratulated the officers and members of the corps on the smartness of their first parade in public, and on the high standard of efficiency they had attained. "Any regular officer,'' he said, "would be proud to lead so smart a 'body." The commandant, replying on behalf of the corps paid a tribute to the «work done on 'behalf of the corps by Major Blackett and Staff Sergeant-Major Finney. The girls had certainly worked very hard, but without the splendid ■cooperation and assistance which had been given them they would not have made such rapid progress.