Mrs. Mercury

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 323, 31 August 1945, Page 8

Mrs. Mercury

DURING the Japanese war, radio has put a few emphatic finishing touches to the domestic revolution it began some years ago. Has the man of the house noticed that the duty, privilege, burden, dignity, or what you will, of being newsbearer is his no more? No longer the slow, sad footsteps from the city-"My dear, you must prepare yourself for

grievous news: our beloved Queen is dead." Nor the despatch case surprisingly stuffed with flags-"You may hang them up now, children. The war is over." The shock of Pearl Harbour crashed into the quiet morning routine of the household after men had left for their work. City workers began to instruct their wives to listen to mid-day broadcasts and report back, and woe betide them if they became engrossed in feeding babies and forgot to do so. The heavy task of spreading the news of President Roosevelt’s death fell mainly on suburban housewives, who rang it through to town offices. And on the last day the war went out as it had come in, during the hours of morning housework, so that those who were alone in their isolated homes had already heard Mr. Attlee’s first four words when the sirens sounded "down tools" throughout the city.