SICK CHILDREN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 January 1939, Page 8

SICK CHILDREN

ENTERTAINED AT HOSPITAL. BY NOTED LADY TRAVELLER. Through the kindness of Matron Barnett, the children at the Masterton Hospital had the pleasure, last week, of being entertained by Miss Evangeline Worden who has done much to brighten the lives of sick children with tales of her travels, illustrated by photographs and curios collected in distant lands. It has been Miss Worden’s good fortune to travel and live in many lands and the tales she has to tell are both exciting and original. Close to the outbreak of the Great War, Miss Worden with her parents, was spending the school holidays in Belgium and were on their way to Cologne when something prompted them to abandon the trip and return to Cornwall. A day or two later war was proclaimed. A few years later, Miss Worden returned to France, joined a French association for the relief of devastated villages, as a V.A.D. cook on the Somme, and spent her spare time gardening in the military cemeteries. At one time, this much-travel-led New Zealander was children’s editress of a newspaper to which she contributed many original stories. On one occasion while living in England, Miss Worden was in the Young People’s Department of the Manchester Public Libraries where among other things she gave illustrated talks on the Dominion. She later visited France, Holland and Belgium and saw activities of the children’s libraries there. During one summer when in London, the New Zealander gave her services at a large Play Centre where 2000 children attended daily, while their parents were at work. Miss Worden has also visited India and Ceylon and the latter she considerse one of the loveliest spots in the world. There she visited friends on tea estates at an altitude of 6000 feet, where the only means of transport were carrying chairs, each one shouldered by four coolies. Great admiration was expressed by the New Zealander for the natives who were devoted servants and displayed great endurance in the execution of their duties. For instance, the tappil or mail coolie used to leave the bungalow at 6.30 a.m. with the mail, cover on foot 11 miles through the jungle and return with the incoming mail at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, after having walked 22 miles. He did this daily except Sunday. Miss Worden was interested to see when in Switzerland, an outstanding monument erected to commemorate the services of the postal department in all countries of the world.

Thus the stories Miss Worden has to tell are many and exciting. Aboard a ship on fire off Cape Horn, followed later by a succession of icebergs, lost in the forests of Corsica for which that beautiful island is renowned ....

Miss Worden has a great store to draw from and for a time was honorary story-teller at the Children’s Hospital in Sydney, followed later by a period at the Auckland Hospital and the Blind Institute where the children derived much pleasure from Miss Worden’s visits.