Champagne At 3d A Bottle

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 30, 8 December 1950, Page 2

Champagne At 3d A Bottle

From “Athens,” Wellington

Now that Christmas is approaching hampers of New Zealand wines are being offered the public at anything between 5s and 9s a bottle, while Australian brandy is on the market at 30s and 32s 6d. It takes my mind back to the days when we New Zealanders in Greece in 1941 were given a few hours’ leave, and we all went into Athens. It was warm weather, so what we looked for first of all was beer. At one pavement cafe there was no beer. We were just about to seek some other place, when I spotted one of my company, behind a big bottle. On looking closer I could scarcely believe my eyes. It was champaigne —French champagne—a quart of it. “You are doing it well, laddie.” I remarked. .“Oh,, I don’t know—only six drachma a bottle,” he replied. And all round him were others, women as well as men, drinking champagne out of huge glasses. The low price amazed me, for at that time the rate of exchange as far as we were concerned was 500 drachmas to 18s 9d sterling. We -knew that because we were being paid in 500 drachma bills. So that roughly meant that one Greek drachma was worth less than a halfpenny of our English money. The champagne was bought at about 3d a bottle, and there they were drinking it in tankards. Lovely stuff, too. In those days the average Greek was in very low circumstances. Even a drachma meant something to him, and the thought of spending six on a bottle of wine was, in most cases, out of the question. How long that sort of thing' lasted in Athens I haven’t an idea, as we were soon pushing our way north to Mt. Olympus.