THOUGHTS OF HOME

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1940, Page 6

THOUGHTS OF HOME

CELEBRATION OF CHRISTMAS EVE NEW ZEALANDERS IN EGYPT. PARCELS. MAIL & DINNER. (Received This Day. 9.15 a.m.) (From the Official War Correspondent with the N.Z.E.F. in the Middle East.) WESTERN DESERT. December 27. A night that will he the first Christmas Eve the soldiers oC the Second N.Z.E.F. have spent in the field is creeping coldly over the great 'Western Desert, as this message is being written. New Zealanders scattered across hundreds of miles of Foreign soil are turning their Hi oughts homewards, remembering the crowded, expectant days ol' reunions and Farewells that marked this time just a year ago.

Here on the dusty seaward slopes which hold the biggest concentration of those first men to leave their country’s shores, Christmas can still peacefully and .happily be celebrated in the traditional way. No pains have been spared in the plans made to pieserve its spirit of good cheer in even these strangest of surroundings. Ration trucks rumbled along the road from the camps in the morning, to be laden at the railway depot with turkey, chicken, mutton .vegetables, fruit and beverages by the ton for dinners that will be spread before the men tomorrow on scores of mess tables in tents, dugouts and the open air. With the menus planned well in advance, army cooks have mobilised stoves and home-made ovens ready for the year's best effort. Christmas pudding in the Western Desert style is made a lesser worry than it might be by the fact that the mixture is being supplied to the forces in bulk but there will be any amount of work tending to roasts, preparing sauces and extra delicacies with which the atmosphere of Christmas at home is to be recaptured.

LORRIES CONVEY PARCELS. From the base camp hundreds of' miles away a fleet of lorries swung oft the highway two days ago with case after case of gift parcels sent by the New Zealand public. There has been also a steady flow of Christmas parcels and mail from soldiers’ homes and personal friends. All leisure possible will be given to the troops tomorrow and padres are arranging for special services. At Brigade Headquarters, the officers organised a seven-a-side football tournament against the men. Far in the west on either side of the disputed border, Christmas cheer will be enjoyed sooner or later by the comparatively few New Zealanders actively engaged in the war. For the motor transport drivers, it will mostly be later. Tinned bullybeef may have to suffice as Christmas dinner for fnany until the cookhouse has reached the end of the long supply journey. It is certain, however, that these men would not exchange their eventful days in the forward areas, even for Christmas Eve in a city such as Cairo, where countless other New Zealanders will probably be mingling tonight with happy crowds. MEN CHEERFUL. Snatches ■of song can already be heard in this camp from tents and canteens in which men are gathered. Here they are lifting their voices with a Christmas radio programme: there a mouth-organ catchily plays the opening bars of a familiar carol. Bursts of laughter ring from a mess tent in which a plot is growing to serenade the commanding officer with midnight anthems and the possible motive revealed, as a few words drift down on the breeze, "and he will be a pool' sport if he does not’ ask us in for a drink.”