MANY HANDS BUR IT'S HARD WORK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 201, 30 April 1943, Page 8

MANY HANDS BUR IT'S HARD WORK

Visit To A Red Cross Centre

r4 VERYTHING that you will see is done by voluntary workers," we were told as we went up the stairs of the Red Cross centre. "You see, there are so many women who are anxious to do what they can, but who have not the time to spend more than one day or morning a week. We can always find work that needs to be done." First the "dressings room." Round several tables women were busily at work. Most of them were making surgical pads and bandages, measuring the muslin, folding it round pads of wool. "We make thousands of these every week, and they go to hospital units all over the place. On Mondays women who have been trained as nurses come down and they prepare enough material for the untrained workers to make up. Most of those who are here to-day are just making dressings, but those two at the sewing machines are making surgeons’ suits. We also make caps, operating-table covers, surgeons’ towels, everything in fact that is reeded in a surgery. A different lot of workers comes every day of the week and you would be surprised how much gets done in this way. Of course we sometimes have our difficulties. Some people just cannot see why things should be made. exactly to size. That is why the cutting is kept in the hands of a few experts. I remember in ‘the last war some of the pyjamas that

came in. Some looked like chest-protec-tors and some like bell tents. Even now there are some who think a gather is as good as a pleat." Sorting, Folding, Marking From the dressings room we went down to the next department where all the clothes are sorted and stored. "Things come in and go out from here all over the country," the héad of this room told us. "Here you see some of the many

things that have been made-hot water bottle covers, soldiers’ bags, jumpers, cardigans, sou’-westers. Everything here has to be sorted into lots and folded and marked. All the workers this morning are sewing Red Cross tabs into the woollies. We also send out wool and cut-out pyjamas to the various centres to be made up. Last week we sorted out a thousand cut-out pyjamas to be distributed and we also pack tobacco into tins for the hospitals. The final packing you will see at the store." In the store were several women workers and one or two men packers to do the heavy work of shifting cases. The place was filled ;with packing cases, some ready to go off, others empty and waiting to be filled; We looked at the labels"115 pyjamas O.S.," "150 pyjamas M..," "500 surgical pads," "30 pullovers." A pile of miscellaneous clothing lay in the corner. "Those are clothes for refugees and for people who have been bombed out. We have to see that they are clean and mended and then.we pack them up to send. to England. We get appeals from all over the place for them. For instance we had an appeal drom Malta a while ago. We can’t send it direct, but we send the stuff to England to be sent from there when it is possible. But it does not all go out of the country. Some of it goes to military hospitals in New Zealand and some to other parts of the Pacific and the Middle East." For Prisoners-of-War Another department of Red Cross activity which we saw was the Prisoner-of-War Depot. Here again much of the work of packing and sending off the prisoner-of-war parcels is done by rosters of women who come down perhaps one day in six weeks or two months. In one room, women were busily filling paper bags and cartons with peas, or sugar. "It is quite tiring work for a whole day," we were told, "as you have to keep on your feet and there is a good deal of stooping." Upstairs was great activity. The head of this day’s group of workers explained how it was done. "I have to bring 33 workers in all and they are all detailed off to special jobs. The packing is done by mass production methods. At this end one woman opens the carton, the next folds it into shape, the next puts in a tin of chocolate, the next butter, the next meat, and so on — thirteen packages in each carton. At the end of the line here, one woman is making up the lids, the next is putting them on, the next is sticking them down. Finally they are packed into the cases that you see, and the two men fasten them up. To-day we are doing 1600 cartons." In another workroom in this depot private parcels were being opened and repacked. "People will put things that are not allowed into parcels. This censoring work is something that we are doing for the Post Office. Every prisoner-of-war parcel is opened arid repacked. Then it is very securely done up and sewn into linen and the address is checked to make » (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) sure that it gets to the right camp. It is just an added insurance that private parcels find their destination." A stfenuous day in the packing rooms? Undoubtedly. But for every day spent in this way 1,600 prisoners would eventually have a parcel to relieve the monotony of their:life, and 1,600 boys would know that they were not forgotten.