CHRISTMAS CAN BE LONELY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 391, 20 December 1946, Page 18

CHRISTMAS CAN BE LONELY

HE pleasant Saturday morn- ’ ing sound of the lawnmower stopped. The man next door leaned over the fence. "What’s your programme this Christmas?" he asked. I intended to stay at home, I told him. "Same here," he said. "T’ve been away the last four years, and

lamb and green peas, a bottle of something off the ice and a game on the lawn with the kids will suit me fine. Then a lie-down in the sun-porch." And, as ar? afterthought, "if it’s wet, a liedown anyway." And that, probably, is how a good many family men in New Zealand will spend this Christmas-which is very nice for the men and the families. Loneliness at Christmas time is uncommon in this country. The solitary homestead in the bush and the prospector’s hut by the creek have grown, in a few generations, to villages and towns. Or, if they have been abandoned, are no more than a name on the map. Yet there are some New Zealaders who, because of their occupations, spend Christmas almost entirely alone. Round our coasts there are about 60 lighthouses, 20 or so of them tended by keepers (the rest are automatic). At one, on the East Coast of the North Island, there are three keepers in three cottages, with their familiés. Their supplies reach them by launch, when the weather is suitable. I recall ‘members of a now defunct harbour board taking a trip to the island during one of their periodic

harbour works inspections, and having to stay there for a couple of days because of a sudden storm. But their families were not worried. The island’s radio gave them the news. And it is radio that keeps the lighthouse man and his family in constant touch with the cities. Through it, he can join jn the seasonal celebrations.

But modern communications that have taken the loneliness out of so many occupations have created it in others. For this, weather forecasting must take some blame. In the Pacific there are islands which are no more than scattered coral banks a few feet above the sea. Here men work in a climate which, for eight months of the year is stiflingly hot; the other four months make up the hurricane season. The only living things besides themselves are the sharks swimming in the lagoons and the giant land crabs which feed as often as possible on tins of biscuits and pairs of boots. And places like these are not ideal for Christmas celebrations. Weather forecasting is so important to us to-day that there is a chain of observation stations, at Aitutaki, Penrhyn, the Kermadecs, and so on right down to the Campbell Islands in the sub-Antarctic. So a handful of New Zealanders, radio-operators and weatherobservers, have of necessity to spend their Christmas in these places. How do they celebrate? One sidelight came from a diary in the possession of Leslie Clifton of the Aerodromes Service of the Public Works

Department, himself. also a man with much experience of out-of-the-way spots. The diarist had written: "December 25. Christmas Day. Had several spots before dinner. Very hot. Opened the medical brandy." This man had put in nine months in one of the most desolate pieces of coral in the whole Pacific. The short extract may mean little to the stay-at-home, but a lot to the man who knows loneliness. Men in remote localities are instinctively on their guard against these passing mental phases. Their precautions take the form of an almost ritualistic observance of the courtesies and decencies associated with Christmas. Dinner is an important affair. The menu invariably includes green peas, tinned of course, and a pudding which may be canned or the real thing. It all depends on the skill and confidence of the cook. All the Trimmings After dinner comes the exchange of gifts. One man will produce a bottle of wine, stored up fgainst the day; another a cake for which his wife has collected butter coupons from friends and relatives. The most phlegmatic man Mr. Clifton has ever met was stationed on Campbell Island. Completely unemotional, he smoked an old pipe. continuously. Comments on its aroma left him cold. But» on Christmas Day he nonchalantly presented the party with a box of fine cigars. There were a good many lonely Christmas seasons during the war, on the secret’ radar installations, listeningposts and coast-watching stations at home and abroad. One of the loneliest came the way of a highly-placed civil servant connected with coast-watching. His Christmas Day was spent not on a Pacific island but in the Government buildings on Lambton Quay, Wellington. This is how it happened.

._ On Christmas morning the Director of Naval Intelligence telephoned him at his home, and referring to Suvarov, a tiny. island near the Equator, asked: "Didn’t we change the Suvarov code word last week?" The civil servant remembered something about it; he had intended to fix it. up after the holidays. The codes were in the office safe. The rest of the conversation went something like this: Director of Naval Intelligence: It’s very awkward; there’s a signal from Suvarov this morning. Civil Servant: I suppose it couldn’t wait till to-morrow; there’s nobody in the office to-day. D.N.I.: But a signal wouldn’t come unless it was most important. C.S.: Well, to-morrow. ... D.N.I.: But it might be something about a raider or a pocket battleship. The civil servant (highly-placed) closed his nostrils to the cooking smells, his eyes to the Christmas toys being unpacked by the children and to the concerned expression of his wife as she watched him at the telephone, and said: All right; I'll go down and decode it myself. A taxi shortage meant a long time in getting to the office. It took him a while to find the key of the safe. By dinner-time he had found the code. He felt peckish. An efficient typist had locked away the tea and biscuits. He had a glass of water. By late afternoon he had the puzzle out, although until he had studied the directions that very morning, he had never drawn up a Playfair code. And while he waited for .a taxi to return to his home, his eye kept straying to the message; decoded, on the table. It read: "Compliments of.the season to all the staff... . Jim."

Staff

Reporter