THE "GINGERNUT LADY"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 164, 14 August 1942, Page 14

THE "GINGERNUT LADY"

HERE was a surprise for at least two of the New Zealanders in the Middle East recently when the broadcast to New Zealand troops overseas came on. Sergeant W. J. Barnard of the 210 Military Mission, 1st Greek Brigade, Palestine, was sitting in his mess-room when someone mentioned that a woman of his name was about to broadcast. He listened and heard his mother say, "I sincerely hope that my own two boys, Joe and Will, and my grandson, Whatman, are listening in just now." Further north, round a campfire, under the cedars of Lebanon, toasting cheese on the end of his bayonet, or sandpapering the butt of his rifle, or doing whatever one does do round a campfire, Trooper James W. Whattie, also

heard the voice over the air and recognised it at once as that of his grandmother. But these are not the only ones who know Mrs. H. M. Barnard of Island Bay. New Zealand Forces in whatever part of the world they may happen to be serving know Mrs. Barnard as "The lady who sends the little gingernuts." She made gingernuts for the N.Z. Forces in the last war and in May, 1940, she began again. Most of us think in terms of pounds, but Mrs, Barnard had baked a ton of biscuits by May, 1942, and all on her own small gas cooker at Island Bay. It isn’t only getting the ingredients and doing the baking that makes the work, as all who send parcels overseas know. There is the getting and washing of tins, lining them with paper, and packing them. The first 60 pounds made were packed in 100 tins and sent to the Navy League, then three cases to the first echelon, three cases to the 2nd echelon, and three to the Maori Battalion. At the time of her broadcast to the troops 35 cases had gone overseas. And it isn’t only gingernuts that fill up the cases. All the corners and crevices are filled with chewing gum, and in one case as many as 147 packets were needed to fill the spaces. Sweets and loaf sugar (though perhaps this is no longer possible) find a place in the parcels too, _ Mrs. Barnard has had letters from all over the world from men who have had her parcels, but she does not want "fan mail" as such, "All I want," she says, "is to know that the boys are all right and that they are getting the comforts that I send them." We wonder who was more pleased, Mrs. Barnard when she knew her boys had heard her over the air, or the boys themselves when they realised whose was the vee to a they were listening.