ARCHERY COURSE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 133, 25 July 1941, Page 3

ARCHERY COURSE

R.A.F. PILOTS BRINGING THEM BACK TO FIGHTING TRIM R.A.F. officers, accustomed to tiring eight machine guns simultaneously or dropping sticks of bombs, assembled recentl.v on the ]iawns ot an English west country hotel to start a course of archery. Thej r arc not trying a new wav of bringing down Messerschmitts. The archery is medicine. For the licitol is really a hospital where several hundred airmen are* getting their second wind. Gymnastics and sport pT'ay as big a part as the doctors, the nursei; and the masseurs. As soon as a man is ready for it hr> is sent to the gym. a sort of club centred round a milk bar run by wives of officer patients. There arc swimming baths, indoo«* ,ond outdoor tennis courts, squash, badminton, croquet, a mashie and putter golf course, with medal competitions, and bowling greens. Nurses and officers' wives make uo mixed doubles at tennis. There is a ballroom where a pretty girl can often do more than a doctor in making a patient use his iiegs. Next door to the ballroom theatre is a lounge with a bar. Doctors assure you that the bar has its place in the scheme of tthis hospital. It brings the patients back to the atmosphere of the mess and a stage nearer to action again.