BRITISH CHILDREN
HAPPY IN NEW HOMES IN CANADA MR SHAKESPEARE’S BROADCAST BONDS MADE CLOSER THAN EVER (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 13. In a broadcast talk to the evacuated children in Canada, the Undersecretary of the Dominions, Mr Geoffrey Shakespeare told a good story He was broadcasting in a new weekly programme in the 8.8. C. North American service called, “For the Children.”
“I am very delighted,” said Mr Shakespeare, “to have a chance of speaking to you—-the 1534 boys and girls who have by now settled down in Canada. How are you all? Your reply echoes across the Atlantic: ‘Very Well, thank you!’ I knew you were.
“There was one girl I heard of called Sheila—l won’t say in which town in Canada she is. When asked by the chief escort if she had had a good dinner, she replied, ‘Yes, thank you. I had chicken and cauliflower and sweet corn and gravy, ice cream, five oranges, two peaches, and some grapes,’ ‘But,’ said the chief escort, ‘Sheila, you will burst!’ and Sheila replied, ‘Yes, but it’s worth it’.” Mr Shakespeare continued: “It is an awful responsibility to have to answer for this huge new family of C.0.R.8. children. Thank you for making my task easier by behaving so wonderfully. During the voyage, 1 am told, you cliarmed half the buttons and badges off the officers and crew.
“I hear from many letters how happy you are in your new homes. ‘Do you remember when I spoke to you in the hostels? I said. ‘You are the lucky ones. You have been chosen to represent Britain in Canada, and you will not only have fathers and mothers here whose loving thoughts are always with you, but you will get new fathers and mothers as foster parents and perhaps new grandfathers and grandmothers and new aunts and uncles.’
“I picture you now with your new parents or new friends, and your war duty is to show by your conduct how grateful we all are to them for two blessings—first, for sending to our aid their magnificent fighting men, and, secondly, for so generously giving you safe shelter in homes far from the war zone.
“That is why 8.8. C. has a new meaning: it means Britain Blesses Canada. So Canada and Britain will be drawn ever closer and closer together.”
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1940, Page 9
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390BRITISH CHILDREN Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1940, Page 9
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