CO-OPERATIVE SPIRIT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 3, 10 March 1947, Page 5

CO-OPERATIVE SPIRIT

LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND

IMPRESSION OF ENGLISH WOMAN

The opinion that New Zealanders are co-operative has been gained by Mrs T. O. Garland since her arrival in New Zealand from Britain. Her husband, Dr. Garland, has been appointed by the Government to the position of industrial hygienist to the Department of Health. Dr. and Mrs Garland and their family have settled at Lower Hutt.

While taking her older children, to school at Waiwhetu Mrs Garland was interested to notice a kindergarten conducted by mothers at which she has placed her small child. The community effort symbolised by this kindergarten drew Mrs Garland’s comment about “co-operative New Zealanders.” “I felt,” she said, “that there is a sad dearth of coopedative effort in modern society. We at Home are just now trying hard to encourage it by building community centres run by the people, and it is by no means easy to recruit interest and support. “I notice that things are done here in a common sense and practical manner,” said said. “For instance, post boxes at the gate instead of at the front doors; milk bottle tops are dated; weekly tickets are issued on the trains and buses; bus drivers take the fares;- and there is the five-day week.” / The most striking impression to anyone from England was, however, the abundance of food and the fact that almost everything was more expensive than in England. Books were 25 per cent, dearer, and some foodstuffs such as tomatoes, fruit, vegetables, tea and coffee were .more than double in price. Meat, however, was cheaper. “Everyone looks as if they had just fitted themselves out with brand new clothes, and it seems queer to see people dressed up in smart hats, gloves and high heels in the morning,” Mrs Garland said. Everyone in England, almost without exception, was dressed most of the time, in severe workmanlike clothes. “All children who attend State schools in Britain get free meals and a third of a pint of milk daily, and these meals are often obtainable during the holidays,” she continued. “Helpings at restaurants and hotels there seem unbelievably small compared with similar meals here. “There are more things' in the shops-there now. Plates and mugs can be bought, but no cups and saucers yet; also hairpins, hair slides, brushes and combs,, envelopes, pocket knives, fountain pens, aluminium saucepans, glass ovenware—all much cheaper than they are here and obtainable for the first time since the war began.” Mrs Garland is a sculptor, having studied at the Slade School, London. In her early twenties she went to Capetown to teach sculpture and drawing at the newly endowed Faculty of Art, known as the Michaele’s School of Art. She exhibited sculpture in London and Paris and was made associate of the Ecolede Beaux Arts, the first English woman sculptor to be elected. Returning to England after some years, she taught' sculpture at the Bournemouth School of Art. She then spent a year in Spain. She was married in 1932.