GREETINGS FROM
The following letter from a former contributor to these columns-a radio officer on an. overseas ship-has reached us from the void. Dear Friends,-As Artemus Ward would say "Alas! it cannot was!" ... Dashed have been my hopes for several weeks now of a visit to your sequestered island and the mental rejuvenation which comes on the sweeping winds of Port Nicholson. . .. Owing to the machinations of that "cockerel on a dunghill" (vide Priestley) we have been diverted hither and thither, and I just can’t tell you where we are at the moment as the Captain doesn’t quite know where he is himself..,.
We reached Liverpool just as the Old Year was becoming suspicious of Mrs. Time and was preparing to die of mortification. The big blitz was in progress, and I was in constant fear that the noise and vibration would cause me to cut myself as I was shaving. . . . A day or two before our arrival a "tinfish"’ came up just a hundred yards ahead of us-evidently too close to fire at us. We put our stern to him, but by the time we were ready to press our triggers he had submerged. Two days later Lord Haw Haw included us in his usual spate, and gave a few people ashore a nasty shock, but we happened to arrive safely the morning before his broadcast, and the R.A.F. hastened to convey our apologies to him for making him appear to have departed slightly from the truth. During leave I went to the old home in the ae and walked about a hundred miles in the blackout -so black that I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I did see The Great Dictator, Waterloo Bridge. and Pride and Prejudice; I did a little danc- ing, renewed my acquaintance with the vicar, organised a fire-extinguishing system in the house with long-handled shovels and seashore sand, and occasionally sneaked into the local pub. But it was cold! Snow, sleet, ice, hail, rain, wind, mud and slushand the Home Guard praying for a few "incendiaries" so that they could rush from their shelters and make a bit of toast to vary their diet! One hesitates to write about the international situation. The plasticine frontiers*of Europe may have changed before I get this into the mail. But while there are more spices than lice in the Balkans, I guess we must simply go on scratching up God’s good earth. Regards to all in the NBS and The Listener.Thine, -,
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 97, 2 May 1941, Page 4
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418GREETINGS FROM New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 97, 2 May 1941, Page 4
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
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