Week-end Chat

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 83, 31 December 1937, Page 14

Week-end Chat

COUSIN

ROSE.

COUNTRY ANDb TOWN.

Week-end Chat. Dear Everyone. — This has been & specially good out-of-door Christmas and New Year, and everywhere one can see camps and picnics — beside rivers, under trees, on the various beaches. For samp wear, shorts and slacks for the womenfolk are much more usuak now than dresses. The practical side of the trousered garb appeals to women who want to look neat for boating, launching and tramping, instead of putting up with the nuisance of skirts and petiicoats which catch on thorns and brushwood and soon become untidylooking. Those who think women are becoming masculine need not. worry, for the slacks are discarded quickly when no longer suitable. Dress makes no difference to sex. One sees few of the younger 'women and girls wearing dresses at our summer resorts. They still look very teminine and • attractive in wide sun hats, neat shorts or slacks, and gay little blouses or short-sleeved jerseys, and the tiny children run happily about in print trousers held by straps above bare backs, with wide hats to shade them. Free, easy, and healthy is the modern attire. Compare it with the days of half a century ago. Then parents bathed apart — father with the men, and mother with the women of the party. Father wore a substantial bathing suit right to his 'knees or below and well up to the neck," chastely enlivened by a neat white stripe somewhere. Mother probably wore drill— . heavy drill — with rows of red or white braid, long tunic with sleeves, and pantaloons with a frill below the kneu Doesn't it seem tr, Look now at the healthy male bodies with just a neat pair of trunks as bathing garh, and girlk in 'gay floral suits which make them look like pretty butterflies on the beach. especially with the big paper umbrellas and bright beach wraps many carry now. • • * As this is being printed the year cf 1937 wanes and 1938 dawns. We, will look ahead with optimism, for this is a favoured country. One has only to go to the back-country of New Zealand to realise the opportunities which stli. await the man or woman who wanth life in its simplest form. Fish in the sea, wood on the hills, rabbits, berries, deer — all are still here to provide for the needs of the destitute person who lives in a town from choice and goes hungry. And what strikes one/orcibly in the depths of the New Zealand bush, is that here one could live and slecp unharmed. In Africa or India- there is a constanf war with venomous insects and reptiles. New Zealanders do not always appreciate the wonderful safety and security of their native land. Holiday »time brings this before us when we have time to roam. • • •

This is another of "Spindrift's" interesting letters. Many thanks to the writer for giving his contribution so much thought at a busy time of yearJ It is extremely interesting and full of thought that pieases one: — Dear Cousin Rose. — I am sorry that I put Anglo-New Zealander's back i up, but I am at a loss as to how I offended. To .continue my theme, may I refer in this letter to some scenes that might not be regarded -.s magniflcent by the world at large, yet, nevertheless, will remain in the memories of a few for the rest oi their lives. Scenes that are treasured in one's heart because of the spirit that dominated them. They are not less beautiful than those I referred t* in my last letter. One that recurs to me most poignantly, occurred during the war, when I was,in Leicester recovering from a wound received in France. I was standing on the Post Ofiice steps, when an old woman, clad in the poorest of clothing, stepped in front of me. With tears rolling down her withered cheeks, she told me of the death of her two sons at the front.. That was truly pathetic, but the picture I have in mind, was the expression on her face and in^ h er eyes. Tragedy lay there, yet, pride in her boys who had given their lives for their country, gratitude and admiration for those who had comc from this side of the world to take their places, displaced it. I wore thc. Australian slouch hat and that hau attracted her, and caused her to spealc to me. No protest of mine could dissuade her from pressing a sixpence into my hand — her last, by the waj, truly 'the widow's mile'— a tribute to her dead son's comrades. The expression ou her face when she left me, is beyond my power to describe adequately. It cah be only described as beautiful, and I can still picture the scene of hurrying crowds, whose presence was dimmed into an obscure background for the brave, loving little figure of the bereaved mother. This may seem irrelevant, but I think it bears out my contention that beauty of scenery is a matter of viewpoint. Who does not know the beauty of a mother's eyes, whether it be their own, or, as in this case, oi another's. Even in war, one finds beauty and beautiful scenes, if one has the eyes to see it. On the battle , scarred fields of France, No-man's-land has extended between the trenches like a path of blood, emblazoned by millions of scarlet poppies, growing amid foulness and carnage, yet & sight of singular beauty. On Gallipoli, a star-spangled sky overhead, and a rippling sea below, reflecting the lights of the hospital ships as in a mirror, Fifteen mlleo 4 iway, under the shaciow of. ihe Island

of Imbros, a cruiser sent long figures , of light flashing across the water, searching here and there for a target. A liash of fire, a thunderous crash, and the lovely scene was destroyed, to remain only a memory. In Egypt, the beauty of the desert night overhanging the tents of soldiers, can never be forgotten. Peace and war, together, and one wondered which would prevail. h> is a pity that artists do not try toi reproduce such scenes- instead of concentrating on the morbid side of war. Perhaps they will take the hint and change their ways In the next one, which, unfortunately, appears to be imminent. "SPINDRIFT." Another writer sends in a charming letter: — Dear Gousin Rose. — So Christmas is over, and it seems to me to have been specially kindly warm-hearted one, when so many have tried to bring a* spot of happlness into someone else's life. Have you reaa "The Christmas Carol" lately? I mean the Dickens hook, of course. Whatever the moderns may -say about too much sentiment, tqsh, exaggefation, and so forth, if you read it again in an uncritical spirit, you will flnd again the fascination, and the interest of oldtime ways, that Dickens wrote of — as no one else could, in my small opinion. If there is any one better, do write to this column and tell me. Who is there who did not rejoice that "Tiny .Tim" did not die, in "The Christmas Carol.'" For the people are all real to us and Old Scrooge is still a quoted type. "YULE-TIDE." To all our readers a very happy New Year in 1938.