Husbands Learn Domestic Arts In Large Army Camp

Taranaki Daily News, 22 August 1942, Page 4

Husbands Learn Domestic Arts In Large Army Camp

One of the incidental effects of army life is to improve the domestic value of husbands, active and prospective, beyond the mere masculine accomplishments of wood chopping, lawn mowing and odd carpentry. Wives and fiancees may be surprised to know just how many of the domestic virtues their menfolk acquire in the army, especially in a camp which has all the conveniences of a modern town — except women to do the domestic work. The process is particularly noticeable in New Zealand's biggest inland camp, where, except for the nurses and the hospital cooking staff, no women are employed. In other camps nearer towns and cities the soldier may evade his responsibility to the undarned sock and the buttottless shirt by passing them on smartly to a sympathetic v/oman, but here he must do the.job himself. His technique niay not be accordlng to Weldon's for a start, but he soon gets the idea that knitting and splicing are separate crafts. He has to learn, because the quartermaster enforces a strict order that socks and garments will not be replaced at the public expense unless genuine efforts have been made to keep tliem in repair. When they degenerate through fair wear and tdar and shoW signs of having been under the nee they are, of course. replaced from s.oie. First Lesson. The first lesson that the army gives the raw recruit is the very domestic one of how to fold his blankets and lay out his gear, and from his first morning in camp he is broken Into the routine of sweeping out and tidying-up before he eats. His first meal brihgs the realisation that tliere is nobody but himself to do his washing-up. In feminine circles Monday is traditionally washing day. In this camp it may be any day, for in every battalion area there is a permanent washhouse, with continuous hot water, tubs and electric iron facilities. Electrically driven fans circulate the hot air in the attached drying rooms. These services are among tl« full-time ones carried out by the camp quartermaster's staff. The soldier who cares to pay can, oi course, send his was'hing to a private laundry outside Ihe camp, or he may engage the services of one of the setniprofessional "washermen" who augment their army pay by taking in washing. However, most men do their own laundry work, and you may on occasions hear discussions on the merits of rival soaps and washing powders, or the proper way to handle woollens, which would amaze wives and mothers who imagine that man takes no interest in the laundry except when he cannot find a clean ahirt.