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Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 January 1939, Page 4

One of the minor and sometimes amusing problems with which officials have been faced in health camps is homesickness among one or two of the children, according to the secretary (Mr St J. J. Dunne) of the district executive committee of the Christchurch Federation of Health Camps. Mr Dunne told a reporter that there were usually only one or two cases in a camp, and these children usually recovered from their homesickness quickly. During parents’ visits there had on occasions oeen "quite a scene,” he added, but everything was restored to normal when the parents had left. One of the causes of homesickness was the inadvertence of parents who wrote and told their children how much they were missed at home, or who otherwise inadvertently aroused the children's emotions. In one case, for instance, a parent wrote to a boy and told him about his sister's birthday and the present she had been given. The boy grew homesick because he wanted a present too.