BILLETS IN BRITAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1940, Page 8

BILLETS IN BRITAIN

HOW NEW ZEALANDERS ARE HOUSED PROGRESSIVE IMPROVEMENT. FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH VILLAGERS. (From the Official War Correspondent attached to the New Zealand Forces in Britain.) October 11. 1940. When troops are billeted in occupied premises, their accommodation is paid for at the rate of twopence per man per night; when they are billeted in unoccupied premises, the rate is one penny per man per night. The mess lawyer being down at the village pub last night, soberly celebrating the recent acquisition of his third pip, a series of heated arguments developed round the fire, on points arising from these rates and their possible application. For example: Is a pigsty “premises" within the meaning of the billeting regulations? If so, then clearly a pigsty with pigs in it will be “occupied "premises,” costing twopence a night for each soldier billeted there, whereas a. pigsty without pigs will be “unoccupied premises” costing a penny a night. After an hour it was decided to reserve the point, and to state a case for professional consideration by the newly-starred captain when he should return. It is by no means an academic point only. There are men, and officers, sleeping in pigsties, although not in association with the regular occupants. The accommodation is not nearly as bad as New Zealand experience might lead one to suppose. A pig living with the English gentry would turn up his nose at the quarters offered his brethren on many colonial farms. So when your soldier boy writes home saying he lives in a pigsty, don’t think he is trying to pull your leg. But don't, either, waste too much sympathy on him; because as likely as not it will be a brick pigsty with wooden lining and a concrete floor, in which no pig has lain for years, but which, nevertheless, was thoroughly fumigated before men were allowed to enter it. Moreover, your boy is most unlikely to be still there when you get his letter. A progressive improvement in billets is going on all the time, under pressure from senior officers. One platoon near here moved last week from a pigsty to an unoccupied house, and now luxuriates in kitchen cooking and abundant hot baths. For want of a better grouse, a few of the men feel that the pigstyhad advantages now denied to them: for one thing, the sergeant-major couldn’t see so well into the far corners!

The only reason for men being put in pigsties at all. and into other farm buildings equally open to some objection, was the necessity of getting them under cover quickly. We came down here at the tail of the summer for an exercise, for the duration of which we would have spread our beds in the open, 'or in such shelter as we could improvise, as we did on other exercises earlier in the summer. Then the defence needs of the Kingdom required our staying here into the period when broken weather was to be expected. Within 24 hours all were under cover of some sort. There has been hardly a day since without some movement from poor sort to better sort; and the goal now is to have everyone in a house, or in quarters equally comfortable, within a week. Already more than half the force is so established. Billets are arranged by the civil police; and billeting proper is “the process of quartering troops in occupied premises without disturbing the occupants.” Police surveys have been made of billeting capacity, so that allocation of billets can be made quickly so long as the demand does not exceed the sup-' ply. It does so in this district, where recourse has to be had also to an Allied practice under which unoccupied houses are commandeered, at a rent determined by the War Office, and troops put in possession.

In respect of billets, with attendance —i.e., furnishings, baths and the like — a householder receives three shillings a night for one officer, two shillings for every subsequent officer, and sixpence for each “other ranks.” Meals are not included. Officers always cater for themselves; but there is a scale of charges provided.for men's meals. No New Zealander, however, is in a billet where he has meals provided. Indeed, the arrangement most preferred by our units is not billeting at all, but living by themselves in unoccupied houses. Some sub-units have taken houses on their own responsibility, at rents agreed with the land-lords, but in excess of what the Army will pay officially. In these cases the balances are being made up either from unit funds or by striking a small levy, usually on officers only. Sometimes these houses are furnished. When they are not. neighbours have been most helpful in lending furniture; and our men are quick to show their gratitude by lending a hand in the neighbour's gar-, den. cutting firewood, or clipping hedges. So far as soldiers can, as they move out to live with the community they are quickly slipping into its life, and once again demonstrating their power to make friends. On Sunday mornings the vicar gives his church for a military service—conducted, it may be worth mentioning. by a Presbyterian padre. On Sunday afternoon (there is no service at night, because of the blackout) the colonel goes to evensong. Every evening the Women’s Institute runs a canteen; arrangements are in hand for a dance, the village undertaking to provide all the partners, and to include with them a contingent of W.A.A.F.’s billeted nearby: and Old Ben. licensee of the White Horse, points proudly to a gift board in the public bar, announcing his house's appointment as “official pub" of the battalion. Il is not nil one-sided hospitality, as is evidenced, I daresay, by Old Ben's takings, and by the fact that both village shops have sold out of New Zealand honey. As evidenced, too. by the pockets and. purses of the Village school children, who unfailing greeting. "Got any New Zealand stamps?” has yielded them a rich harvest. But it is deep and true. A man who comes here 20 years hence with a fern-leaf badge in his buttonhole will be recognised and made welcome.