NOW IS NOT THE TIME

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 150, 3 September 1941, Page 4

NOW IS NOT THE TIME

Sir, —As the BEACON throws its light over the Whakatane district perhaps I am not out of order in referring to recent developments in local Home Guard affairs. It appears that during July and August * there has been an epidemic of physical drill in Home Guard circles. So now our men folk, on the farms, after getting up at 5 a.m. aind toiling till dark, are expected to go along to the local hall to do physical drill. Th'at seems over the odds at this busy timg r of the year. Maybe there is a time and place for physical drill, but now is not the time. I think our men folJr get enough exercise loading and unloading hay every day so that they don't need 1o drive their cars down, to the hall after tea to do "arms bend and stretch.," That may| be* fill right for teachers and clerks, or for boys at school, but not for men in middle ago whoi have put in 12 hours in gumboots, not counting meal times. I also hear there is a game of leap-frog which the. Home Guard are expected to engage in at the hall. That also seems all right for boys to play in the paddocks, but not ror rheumaticy men of 50' or' so on a slippery dance floor. No wonder that our men folk are grumbling about the Home Guard degenerating from a body of men to defend the coast with guns into a squad of school boy&. I hear of lots of middle-aged men who no . longer attend. And quite right too. They ought to rest after tea so as to be ready for the next long day of work. I really think the Honie Guard is run by people in the towns who have easy jobs and think we country people are the same. If they were to take a job on a farm they would see that, the Home Guardsmen in the country do not need all this physical drill during early spring when the cows' are coming in. Perhaps if I ventilate this in the BEACON' there will be a little more common sense used by the Home Guard heads. Yours etc., MISSIS FARMER.