THOSE WHO LISTEN― AND THOSE WHO DON'T

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 100, 23 May 1941, Page 8

THOSE WHO LISTEN― AND THOSE WHO DON'T

(By

K.

S.

HEN I heard that army nurses in the Middle East would send personal messages in the programme With the Boys Overseas I listened particularly to see if the one army nurse I knew would be there, and sure

enough her name was among those listed at the beginning. While the sports talk was on, I rang up three people who knew her, too, just in case they missed her name, and later in the morning I rang them up again to see how they felt at hearing her voice. This is what I found: The first person was delighted, not only with the greetings from her friend, but also with the whole Forces programme, which she heard for the first time. She has a cousin away as a soldier. Then there was a young married couple who have relatives overseas, Yes, they had listened to the list of names, had not noticed our mutual friend’s name, and had just switched off when I rang-in other words, they were not interested in the programme itself nor in the messages to anybody else, My third ring was to a woman who had a cousin overseas. At the first ring she thanked me for letting her know, but at the second ring she said she and her husband had had their ZB station switched on since breakfast and hadn’t heard any personal messages. They seemed more or less oblivious of the fact that a war is going on. As for my own family, although we have no relatives away, we have many friends in the Middle East ard never miss listening to the Boys Overseas programme (except the sports talk) for its sheer interest, apart from the deeply touching drama of hearing soldiers’ sons calling "Mum and Dad." * * * | WAS so suprised to find that some of my friends were indifferent to the programme from the troops-and this on the very Sunday when, in the vivid words of the Greek communique, " The Anzac Corps was weaving new legends round the slopes of Mount Olympus "- that I have since made an attempt to find out how many other people listen to it. I find that most people who have any sort of close connection with the boys in the Middle East wouldn’t miss listening in, but there are many others who can’t be bothered. It will probably seem incredible to people for whom the war looms over the whole horizon of their lives that there can be others living a few houses away who are completely out of that atmosphere. But it is so. These people do not feel the drama of it all, they have no one to weep over, they have not yet been seriously affected by taxation. Yet, although they miss the gnawing fears, I do not envy them their cold isolation. Here in little New Zealand I thrill to know that men of my school and football ‘club fought as heroically over the plains of Thessaly and the hills of Thermopylae as any Greek of old; that the capital of my nation can still pulse with life despite a blitz of bomb and fire on a scale unknown in history; that men of my blood can carry themselves so courageously in the hour of danger that their spokesman could say of them: "If their civilisation

exists for a thousand years men will still say: "This was their finest hour." , Shakespeare put it, as usual, rather succinctly: And Gentlemen of England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That tought with us upon Saint Cris. pin’s day. Even the Americans feel that. % * a F course I didn’t feel all this while the army nurses were giving their messages-in fact, I was more interested in noticing that the girls who went to same schools as their brothers now in the ranks, spoke rather better English, that each one called her father "Dad" or "Daddy," but called her mother "Mother," that my friend sent messages to rélatives I didn’t know she had, and in tryimg to count how many words each girl was allowed (40, I think). Then I fell to musing on the quiet homes in little side streets and country districts where, in the calm of this beautiful Sunday morning, mothers and fathers could not trust themselves to speak, nor dry their eyes, nor still the thumping of their hearts,.as they sat before their radio.