Life in Germany

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 75, 21 December 1937, Page 9

Life in Germany

PEOPLE SEEM HAPPY Waipukurau Resident's Tour Abroad BRITISH FACTORIES BUSY ♦ % (From Our Own Correspondent.l WAIPUKURAU, Last^Night. The friendliness of the German people and the authorities generally towards British visitors was xemarked. on toy Mrs. John Winlove, oi Waipukurau, "who has returned from a year's touring in Europe. Mrs. Winlove spent the greater part of her time in England, where she witnessed the Goronation celebrations, but she also travelled extensively in Germany, Italy and other European countries. During her trip Mrs, Winlove met a number of people with local connections. She went yachting on the JNorfolk Broads with Captain and Mrs. H. Deane, whose son> Mr. Hal Deane, is farming at Porangahau. At Withypool, a tiny vi'llage in the hollow of the hills, reached after passing Exmoor. she i'ound the small two-storied cottage ' with its thatched roof where the ! author, Mr. Walter Raymond, father , of Dr. C. Raymond, of Waipukurau, wrote his books. The old house is now preserved as a memorial to Mr. Raymond. This village was xemarkable, : Mrs. Winlove said, in that it was comi pletely unspoiled by modern progress. While there she visited the pool where Dr. Raymond iished in his boyhood. Mrs. Winlove toured Scotland with Mrs. M. Cameron and Miss Areher, both of Central Hawke 's Bay, and at Eton she spent much time with her nephew, who is a master at the college. In Barry, South Wales, Mrs. Winlove was the jjuest of Mr. and Mis. Ghute, • parents, of Mr. Kea Chute, of Tikokino. She also stayed for some "time with her husband's relati'ves at Wolverton, about one and a-half miles from Sandringham Castle. After touring England from Land's End to John O'Groat's, Mrs. Winlove travelled to Germany where, she said, she was "both impressed and depresaed.,; The cleanliness throughout the towns struek her particularly. "Never have I seen such cleanliness/' she remarked. There was no rubbish to be seen anywhere, for the person careless or thoughtless enough to toss unwanted litter into the street was promptly fined on the spot by a policeman, who would hand him a receipt for the money; and wroe betide him if he dropped this receipt into the gutter without thinking. Not only was there an absence of rubbish, but stray dogs were not seen in the street either. In fact few people kept dogs, because a licence cost £5 10/-. Outside the cities, particularly in Northern Bavaria, there were evidences everywhere of thrift. Everything was saved and used, and normng wasted. * Apple Trees for Cider. A picturesque sight was provided by the avenues of apple trees. The fruit is grown for making cider, which is the principal drink in Germany. The State owns the trees but allots them to the peasants, and each tree bears a number. Mrs. Winlove found the German people and the authorities friendly towards the British. Her party was well received and they werp allowed to be present in Nuremburg for Herr Hitler's review of the Eabour Youth movement, although they were the only spectators apart from the police and military authorities. In Berlin she visited the new headquarters of the Air Ministry, a handsome building erected in 15 months by 5000 workmen. The Royal Square at Munich, where frequent military parades are held, was another place visited. The first fall of snow on the mountains marked the beginning of a picturesque ceremonial all over the country. At this signal the cows would be brought in off the hills for the winter. But it meant more than the driving of cattle through the streets, which is a common sight in New Zealand. Each cow was artistically decorated with floral wreaths and the cowherds would sing lustily in the procession. Impresslons of Herr Hitler. The people seemed happy under the present regime. Herr Hitler impressed Mrs. Winlove as a simple-living man, who made no show or ostentation. "I am sure he tries to live up- to what he preaches," she said. In Italy, however, the British visitors were not so well treated and Mrs. Winlove regarded Signor Mussolini in a different light from Herr Hitler. Mussolini, she said, was just a second Napoleon. The party was warned before they leffc the ship to avoid mentioning his name in couversation, for some visitors a short time previously had- been arrested for doing so in speaking among them'selves. While in (Jairo Mrs. Winlove souglit out the places where the New Zealand soldiers had camped during the War, before travelling by camel to see the Pyramids. The land upon which the soldiers had camped when it was arid desert had been transformed by modern irrigation methods, and the land was now extensively cultivated. A magnificent hotel on modern Continental lines had been built nearby. The train journey from Cairo to Port Said was made by moonlight along the banks of the Sucz Canal. Boats crept silently up the canal while Arabs with their camels were perparing to camp for the might — a vision of loveliness. Mrs. Winlove spent the greater part of her time in Britain. Here, she said, she found the love for the New Zealanders was as warm as it had ever been, and keen interest was being talcen in the Dominion's legislative experiments under ifos first Labour Government. England was prosperous. i Factories were working at full presI' sure. Mrs. Winlove heard the Anzac Day service at St. Paul's, when the New i Zealand High Comrnissioner, Mr. W. J. IJordan, read the lesson, and she atterwards alfended the ceremony at the Cenotajili. She attended the GaTter

Service at Eton Chapel, went over the colieges at Cambridge, and then journey ed to Norwich. In the spring she travelled extensively through Devonshire and Sommerset an.d later toured Lorna Doone's country. Yisits were also paid to Ascot, to the Derby, the Naval Review at Spithead and the Military Tattoo at Aldershot. Tour of Scotland. Mrs. Winlove spent a month touring Scotland, where she made a point of visiting the places mentioned in H. V. Morton's book. The War Shrine at Edinburgh Castle she described as the most wonderful memorial she had seen. She went across to the Isle of Skye and saw the burial place of Flora Macdonald, who assisted Prince Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, to escape from Scotland after his defeat at the Battle- of Culloden in 1746, and later she stood on the spot near Stirling Castle where the battle of Bannockburn was fought in 1314, when Scotland gained her independence after the defeat of Edward H. by Robert the Bruce. Olympia, where the games began by the ancient Greeks are still held in the shadow of Mount Olympus, Ober-Am-mergau, in Batavia, famous for its Passion Play dating back to 1634, Naples, and Pompeii where the city buried by ashes from Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. has been excavated and restored as a tourist resort — these were but a few of the interesting places visited. A journey was made through the Black Forest in the German provinees of Wurtemberg and Baden, a district famous for picturesque seenery, and down the Rliine to Salzburg, in Austria, where Mozart was born in 1756. "It was an interesting tour, but now that it- is over I have to think about settling down at home again, ' ' coneluded Mrs. Winlove.