"So This Is Sydney"

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5317, 1 February 1947, Page 3

"So This Is Sydney"

ROTORUA GIRLS' IMPRESSIONS OF AUSTRALIA. The followiny are exLracts from a letter received hy Mrs. I. Collard from her daughter, Miss Betty Collard, who recently arvived in Sydney: — "On Saturday morning; we went out to fix up (Sur banking, rations, etc. i've never seen such discourtesy in shops as we have struclc here. We went to a post office to send eables home and we waiteti for about 10 minutes to get a bit of attention. Finally, a girl at oue end of the counter jerked her finger at us and snapped "Come here." Gwen and I wero amazed, b'.it have sincc lound thac everyone is the samc in shops. "We ave having a little difficulty fmding johs so that we ean live in, but. we are going" to an cmployment oureau to-morrow to get a live-in hotel job for a while. There are hundreds of johs and even the Hotel Austialia was anxious to take us as waitresses, but could not let us live m. The minute we mention that we are Xew Zealanders and after a job, they want to snap us up right away.

j "Food is pretty expensive here and ; even light lunches eost about 2s tld j in a shop. Clothes are so inexpcnsive ' j ar. 1 yet so fashionable that anyone would be mad to make one's own. You j can buy linen suits for £'i, threepit'ce sun-suits for £1, three-piece underwear sets for 21s and machineknitted jumpers for 5s. They are all well made too. You've never seen such clothes as they wear around the citju in faet, you would swear you were in ] America. For men— yon'll never see them 111 grey trousers and sports coats. Trousers are always fawn or brown rhocs two-tone and jackets of every weird size and description. Half the men are in shirt sleeves or opennocked shirus, no bats or if they do wear them, panamas or four-coloured ciieck thing's which are supposed to be bats. The women — bare legs, no bats, bare midrifFs and here and there, a fashion plate."