NEWS FROM FRANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 March 1940, Page 10

NEWS FROM FRANCE

ACTIVITIES IN PARIS

DEGREES OF BLACK-OUT.

UNITY WITH GRE.AT BRITAIN

(From Our Paris Correspondent.) PARIS. January 15.

Parisians have got over Christmas | and New Year, with their innumerable festivities and visits in spite of the war, visits in which many soldiers on leave from the front took part, and the temporary stalls along the Boulevards are only just coming down after doing a fairly brisk business in all sorts of Christmas toys, books, trinkets and useful things for the household. More and more people are returning to Paris and one has to wait longer before the agent will hold up his truncheon and stop the traffic. At night a little move light has been granted to us. and the magnificent square ol the Concorde, the finest in Europe, has more lights on at night than we have seen for quite a time. French taxi and private drivers must be the best anywhere, for the way they have been able to cross and whirl, round this square without so much as a bad bump into one another in the dark of night is marvellous. And there was no crawl about it either.] The Paris black-out is a three stages affair, lights growing fewer as the evening wears on. until by the time it is really late one almost has to grope one’s way. In case of alarm, a central control can plunge the city from degree number one into degree number three of blackness. During this same period the Social Centre for men of the B.E.F. on short leave in Pai;is has been very busy. This home of welcome at 28, Avenue des Champs-Elysees is the pct scheme of British residents in Paris, and no fewer than fifty-two of them are on duty voluntarily every day to see that our boys from the front have a good time. These helpers do not even eat at the expense of the institution, but. buy their own food. The response of the Britishers living here has been splendid. Many offices, where war was accompanied by a big fall in business, have loaned their comfortable waiting room arm chairs to the Social Centre. Other businesses have contributed useful articles, among them a first-class radio set and billiards table being much appreciated. The billiards table got a day's rest after one enthusiastic player in khaki pocketed the red down a grating in the corner of the room, but the French plumber who eventually rescued the ball refused to take any pay for his services. What the men particularly like about the Social Centre is its homeliness. They can even get a button sewn on if they want it. They also find English. food cooked in the English way. Four English ladies living just outside Paris once a week send in delicacies they have cooked, so the boys get a, taste of familiar pie and pudding. Two ] others supply several hundred francs worth of’ fresh vegetables and other food every week. Residents are invited to drop in and have a talk with the visitors who also enjoy this added touch of homely chat with fellow countrymen not in uniform. One of thes residents after a look round promised a monthly contribution of 1000 francs “for the duration.” Next day he came back to say he had found a friend who. wanted to put himself down for 500 francs a month, and soon that friend found someone else, and so it is going on. The soldiers on leave have everything free, but those who insist on paying something are allowed to drop what they like into the contribution box. Wednesday evening is sing-song evening, when they' gather round the piano and sing all the songs they know. Parisians are now used to seeing our airmen and our soldiers, but they' find it a little bit difficult to repress a look of surprise at a tall soldier in plaid trousers wearing what appears to them to be a very' small glengarry* cup with long ribbons. They feel there is something wrong in a Scotsman not wearing a kilt. They also see a number of war correspondents, looking like officers. but with a badge on their cap bearing a large letter C. Most of the British correspondents with the French Army are lodged at—nearly said it!— and there is one French Army Corps particularly popular with them, for it gives a great welcome to British war correspondents. One of these complained that he had not been able to get enough excitement, so they let him go out with a patrol into No Man’s Land and enabled him to send home a fine story. Two British war correspondents have amassed, many' medals in past campaigns, and much fun is poked at them by the younger medal-less scribes. One correspondent nicknamed them the “Ribbentrop twins." It was also said of the war correspondent with the biggest show of medals that when he was spotted by the enemy they stopped firing, believing that Goering by' mistake had got into the wrong lines. Running the gauntlet of two lots of Censors, British and French, occasionally leaves them with frayed edges, and one of them has been meditating an unprintable parody’ about “Kiss mo good night Mr Censor. Mr Chamberlain’s speech has been, hailed with great satisfaction in France, and his speech is as vigorous and plain as that of M. Daladier. who recently pointed out that no peace plan can be] considered until definite guarantees have been secured. The French feel that we are such fine sportsmen that we are perhaps a little too prone to take an enemy' at his word once the fighting is over. There is also a section of opinion in France that looks suspiciously on too much war-aims talk. Rightly or wrongly, this section considers that war-aims talk in France is by’ a roundabout way being provoked by Germany, who sees in it a last hope of dividing Great Britain and France should there be any divergence ol views. The first thing is to win the war. and there is little need to ask a Frenchman what he is fighting for. This question has once more been ably answercd.