Home—But Not To Stay

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 252, 21 April 1944, Page 17

Home—But Not To Stay

‘A WEEK or two back we asked the guardians of some evacuated children to tell us whether their charges had become New Zealanders or still hoped to return to Britain. One of those we approached was a farmer's wife in the Wellington Province, who had accepted a boy from Glasgow. Here, shorn of names, is her answer and a photograph (which arrived too late for incorporation in our original article): "COME of your questions are very diffi-cult-not because we have given no thought to them; but because there are so Many answers. ah ; has decided to take up a future farming career in New Zealand. He has had two years in the agricultural course of a high school, and is now gaining experience in practical farming. "When the war is over, he wishes to return home, visit his parents and rela- | tives and reacquaint himself with old haunts, after which his parents and he will return to his farm in New Zealand -an ambitious dream of youth in which a farm and success can_ be acquired without money. J ’s father is agreeable to his doing whatever he wishes. "My own opinion is that since he has chosen a farming career, and been trained here, he should come back to New Zealand after having returned to his folk; but I do not know whether his parents would enjoy tearing up their roots in middle age and coming to a mew land where they have no relatives and \no old friends. J: cannot see this point of view. He said they would eome to New Zealand to live."