Presenting PATRICIA—Who Believed In Being Prepared

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 142, 13 March 1942, Page 16

Presenting PATRICIA—Who Believed In Being Prepared

T the age of seven, Patricia joined the Brownies, and when. she was 12, she became a Girl Guide, so, when at the age of 16 she left the Girl Guides, she had got into the habit of always Being Prepared. This habit stood her in good stead in the Business World, because when the Chief rang his buzzer, Patricia always remembered to take her notebook and pencil. And this gained her an enviable reputation for efficiency and a rise in wages. Well, in the fullness of time Patricia married and settled down in a bungalow in the suburbs with a quarter-acre section tastefully laid out in lawns and flower beds and with a well-stocked vegetable garden. And they were really very happy because Patricia kept the house in apple-pie order and always remembered to feed the cat, and she never minded how many people Jim brought home for dinner unexpectedly because

she was Always Prepared for an Emergency. HEN the war came, and with it came a sheet of printed instructions from the authorities headed "What to Do in the Case of an Air-raid or Other Emergency." And Patricia who always believed in Being, Prepared, pinned it up on her kitchen wall and learnt it off by heart. By the time people in England were inspecting the smoking remains of the first incendiary bomb Patricia had all the practice and theory of dealing with incendiaries at her finger tips. Stirruppumps crouched in every corner of the house; it was difficult to Pi upstairs without tripping over a coil of hose; and so numerous were the buckets of sand that every meal was like a seaside’ Picnic. All this was very distressing to Jim, who didn’t really like sand in his soup, who didn’t believe in’ being prepared, and who thought the best way of defeating the Japanese Armada was to play bowls every Saturday afternoon. But instead of that Patricia used to make

him stay home every week-end and dig out an air raid shelter in their back garden. AFTER Jim had been digging for twelve week-ends the shelter ‘was completed but by that time he had lost his place in the club team and that soured him rather. And he had lots of other reasons for being annoyed. You see for one thing he was very fond of sheeps’ tongues and tinned salmon, and when he came home at night tired and hungry after working several hours overtime and wanted to open a tin of something Patricia would say she was keeping all the tinned stuff for an Emergency. And then the winter came on and the nights grew colder and Jim needed an extra blanket on his bed, Patricia would say that there weren’t any more because she’d given some to the Mayoress’s Community Shelter Fund and she was keeping the rest in a tin trunk in their owr shelter in case of Emergency. And he used to do crossword puzzles in the evenirigs, but he hated having to huddle under the shaded lamp in the livingroom, and when he said anything to Patricia she would say you never knew when the warden was coming round to inspect the Black-out and you had to Be Prepared. And then one morning as he was about to have his bath he was surprised to find the bath already full of cold water. And as he was about ta step into it Patricia rushed in and said "You can’t use that water-it’s boiled for drinking and I’m keeping the bath full in case of Emergency." [t happened that Jim was coming home from work late one night in the Blackout (Patricia, of course, always remembered to carry a torch) when he walked straight into a ladder that Patricia had left standing against the house so that you could get on to. the roof easily if

an incendiary bomb landed on it during an Emergency. When he recovered consciousness he staggered upstairs to the bathroom (stubbing his toes on two buckets of sand en route) to get some iodine, and he found there wasn’t a single thing in the bathroom cupboard. Then he realised that Patricia must ave takén everything down to the Air Raid shelter so that it would be readily available in the event of an Emergency. So he_ staggered downstairs and into the Air Raid shelter. He hadn’t even looked at it since he’d finished the digging because the mere sight of it made him feel savage. There was a hurricane lamp hanging in the middle of the roof, there were two stretchers, six blankets, a table and chairs, a comprehensive first aid outfit, and three books of Advanced Crossword Puzzles. And the walls from ceiling to floor were lined with tinned peaches, tinned tongue, tinned salmon, and toheroa soup. PATRICIA was quite worried when she didn’t see her husband for five days, and she didn’t know quite what action to take because it wasn’t the sort of Emergency she was prepared for. Then she happened to go down to the shelter one morning just to make sure everything was quite ready for an Emergency and she saw that one of the beds had been slept in and there were quite a lot of empty tins around. When Jim came home to his shelter there was a vase of flowers on the table and the place looked quite homelike. And Patricia was setting the table for tea. And Jim explained that thesshelter was really very comfortable, much more comfortable than the house, and that he intended to stay there because the hurricane lamp was better than the living room one for doing crossword puzzles by, (Continued on next page)

PATRICIA (Continued from previous page)

And Patricia was very much upset. But Jim explained that if they lived in the shelter all the time they were bound to Be Prepared in the event of an Emergency. And Patricia thought that was a very good idea so she moved in too. FTER they'd been living in the shelter for two months they decided that perhaps the house would be better prepared for an Emergency if there were somebody living in it, so they let it furnished for £3/10/- a week. And what with all the tinned stuff. they were able to live quite comfortably on that and Jim didn’t have to go to work any more but was able to spend all his time doing crossword puzzles. And they were both very happy.

When the end of the war came and they didn’t think there’d be any more Emergencies they thought they’d better shift back into the house. But meanwhile Jim hnd Patficia had adopted a tame earthworm called Eric, or Little by Little, whom they were really rather fond of and they didn’t know whether he’d take kindly to wallboards and wooden flooring. And Jim hadn’t finished Book III. of the crossword puzzles (they were very complicated ones) and they still had a whole wall stacked with tinned food still unopened, so they thought that what with one thing and another they might just as well stay where they were, Anyway, as Patricia said, there was always the possibility that there just might be another war, and she believed

in always Being Prepared.

M.

I.