MEN OF RAMILLIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 110, 15 January 1940, Page 7

MEN OF RAMILLIES

IMPRESS WELLINGTON PEOPLE

MADE MOST OF THEIR STAY

New Zealand was something quite new to the crew of H.MS. Ramillies, and they fraternised freely with the citizens of Wellington, who were only too pleased to help the breezy visitors. If the bluejackets found everything novel, and made the most of their short stay in exploring life in the Dominion in all its phases, they were quite an experience to those younger New Zealanders who had not hitherto met a naval

crew composed almost entirely of men from the United Kingdom. It is often said that true character is most apparent when the test is made in a town where the individual is a complete stranger. By this measure the men of Ihe Ramillies excelled.

Tin- vim and success put into a dance given by them in the Exhibition Festival Ilall to the people of Wellington in return for hospitalit\ r was something of a revelation hi the exhibition management. Two things particularly appealed, the way in which the grounds were '.■uddenly cleared of bluejackets after the dance ended, apparently by preconcerted arrangements, and the appearance early the next morning of a party of fifty men, who proceeded to give the floor a thorough cleaning, wiped everything down, and finished by polishing the furniture, leaving the hall as clean as a maii-o'-war's deck,