FIVE YEARS IN GERMANY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 168, 12 April 1920, Page 4

FIVE YEARS IN GERMANY

* MR. HORACE HUNT RETURNS. Among tho passengers to arrive from London by the Corinthic was Mr. Horace Hunt, the gifted pianist, who has been absent from Wellington for nearly seven years. Mr. Hunt was pursuing his advanced studies in music in Berlin when the war broke out, and the week after England declared.war was interned as a civil prisoner of war. There were some hundreds of such—English, French, and Russian—who were housed in the buildings of the racecourse at Rnhlebon, just outside Berlin. There Mr. Hunt lived for over the four years of war, enjoying perhaps a better time than war prisoners, but, on the whole, having a very miserable and depressing experience. Mr, Hunt was one of a little group of Eng-lish-Australasian prisoners whose love of music had led them to Germany, and who turned their talent to good account in giving afternoon performances to the rest of the prisoners. _ In some instances the programme comprised original works, which had been composed at Ruhlebnn. and quite a portfolio of new music could be collated from the musicians interned dming the war. The food was very wretched at times, particularly during the last year of the war, and the supplies sent to the prisoners from England, and, in his case, from New Zealand, were very welcome. Mr. Hunt, who was met by his father, has gone on to his home in Auckland, but expects to visit "Wellington again shortly. ■