GOOD FRIENDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 August 1943, Page 4

GOOD FRIENDS

MADE BY DOMINION SOLDIERS MEN POPULAR WITH RESIDENTS. LIFE IN NEW CALEDONIA. (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) NEW CALEDONIA. 'Twill be a bad day for the reputation of New Zealand when Dominion men overseas fail to make friends wherever they go. New lands are strange, but strangeness breeds curiosity and curiosity a desire for personal acquaintance, so when a New Zealander wants to find out things about the country he is living in he pals up with its inhabitants and delves into the why and the wherefore of their mode of living, their reaction to visitors and their degree of willingness to fraternise.

Six months have now passed since the Main Body of this Division arrived in New Caledonia. The troops are scattered in many parts of the island, some of them near towns and villages, others miles from the nearest civilian habitation. But wherever they travel the New Zealand boys manage to establish congenial friendships with the French population. So much so, in fact, that when the time comes for the Division to move away from New Caledonia, its absence is going to leave a noticeable gap in the life of the French community.

War hit New Caledonia heavily. It brought the end of South Seas tourist traffic, the end of cherished imports from France, a big curtailment of shipping and trade, and virtual economic isolation, for a time, at any rate, until the island’s economic and strategic importance attracted Allied military forces and its mineral resources found an outlet in filling the war needs of Australia and America.

Today New Caledonia is in many respects an extremely busy Pacific centre. Yet in the lives of its rural citizens, both French and native, the only noticeable differences have been in a shortage of certain commodities and luxuries, a feeling of isolation and perhaps of friendlessness. The French needed something to hold their interest, something to stir them out of the despondency of threatened stagnation. New Zealanders provided the impetus. They ran dances and invited all the girls of the neighbourhood. The girls came, and so did their mothers, fathers, and brothers. This was unexpected, and rather awkward, but the soldiers, nothing daunted, danced with the mothers as well as with the daughters, so that the evenings became quite like family socials. After a time the New Zealand boys received invitations to French homes. They struggled manfully with the language problem, and found the French habit of gesticulation an asset worth acquiring to convey a message that defied vocabularic translation.

Sometimes French families now come to New Zealand picture shows in the open air. Father, mother, daughters and sons, with a couple of New Zealanders seated with them. They laugh till the tears flow as one or other stumbles over a language difficulty. Ths shrill French, “Oh, La La,” punctuates a screen love- scene until the expression is taken up throughout the audience. Its infectious suitability to a multitude of occasions, in fact, has passed it from unit to unit until it has become almost part and parcel of a New Zealander’s mode of speech and promises to become a catch-cry for adoption in the Dominion after the war. Great business has been done by French restaurants during the last few months. Most country villages have a tea room or the equivalent of a New Zealand grill-room, and though no one would suggest that the charges for a steak and egg are cheap, indeed, even moderate, the change to home-cooked food and a tender steak is worth a mint of money now and again. Charges at restaurants must not be interpreted as a suggestion that the French are not generous to the New Zealanders. Generosity is in fact part and parcel of the New Caledonian make-up. Neither the French nor the natives have much use for money at the present time. The shops have few enough wares to sell, so not many people are interested in cash transactions. They would far sooner give away, or barter, some commodity, than sell it. The natives have fruit and coffee to exchange for cigarettes. The French, in return for some small favour which Army men can render from time to time, are generous to a degree with farm products, pigs, poultry, and eggs. One farmer provided a sucking pig, two fowls, and two dozen eggs for the opening of a new mess and refused point blank to accept payment. The war goes on, and the training of the New Zealand Pacific Division goes on. Convoys cover the roads, men walk mile upon mile on route marches, spend a week or more in the back country or fellow the routine of camp life. Wherever they go they find friends, natives who shower fruit, Frenchmen who shower hospitality. Such friendliness goes a long way towards alleviating the sterner side of the soldier’s life over here, and helps to ease the strain that otherwise would be so hard to bear.