OUTFITTING THE HOME GUARD

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 261, 22 January 1941, Page 4

OUTFITTING THE HOME GUARD

Sir,—We're all in the Home Guard now, and 1 read in the papers that uniforms are lo be issued on the lines of the soldiers' battle dress., Can you lind out, Mr Editor, if the heads of the Home Guard have given consideration to the fact*, that! Home Guardsmen are harder toja&utlit than are soldiers in their^tyv^er^ ties. It will be no use the Manpower Minister saying to the Uni- -f] form factory: "Make ais another 100,000 battle and we will hand them out to the Home _ Guard—assorted sizes like the last lot." No Sir, ask any gent's ter and he will tell you that men of home guard age are hard fellows to fit into reach-me-downs. They bulge out or in, whereas young recruits for the overseas forces are thin and straight—like the tailor's dummies. But men who have,been working hard (or otherwise) for a score of years will maybe find the pants and blouses of the Home Guard uniforms a bit of a \ight fit. It is all fjt very well for you to laugh, Mr E'di- \ tor, but truth wili out, and so will the bulging parts of a Home Guards man's anatomy. Of course, I refer particularly to muscular shoulders and bulging biceps, which are na-> turally more developed on the man of 40 than on the stripling of 21 to 1 30. The uniform makers will have to bear this in mind when ciitting , the cloth. It is all very well for Hon Bob Se-mple, who is a tall thin man, and will probably get a passable lit from the shelves of the Home Guard Quartermaster'.! Stores. But what j.bout our Whakatane farmers who have grown all sorts of shapes through sitting on milking .stoolsj twice a day for years and through' ""«i pitching hay during the feedingout season. I fear they will need tailor-made uniforms. The ones cut out to fit some of the skinny toAvn-« ies will not go round some of the muscular rural recruits. This is a serious business. How can a Home Guardsman concentrate on the foe before him if the seams are splitting behind him? Mr Semple wants another 50,000 Home Guardsmen. Let him give an assiirance that the uniforms will be big enough for all sizes of men and then I feel sure some of our strong men will'be on parade next time. That is all they* are hanging back for. Only a little matter this, perhaps, but one wliich may well have been overlooked by the heads in Wellington, who are not so much in touch as you, 'MrEditor, with those who are the backbone of the country. v „ ' Yours etc., f -■«* x.o.s.