STORY WRITTEN IN DESERT SANDS

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 25, 2 December 1938, Page 3

STORY WRITTEN IN DESERT SANDS

Two Blenheim Brothers _ And The Odd Mystery Of Long Jack

Way out in the Syrian desert, if you want to go the 550 miles from Damascus to Bagdad, you catch a passenger bus run by two New Zealanders who have become famous all over the world as pioneers. Their ancestors pioneered in the New Zealand bush, they themselves have pioneered in the wastes of the desert.

HEIR names are Gerry and Norman Nairn and_ they came from Blenheim. Their mother, Mrs. Nairn, lives in Wellington. Seen by the "Recorc" last week, Mrs. Nairn spoke about her sons, then said, "You won’t publish what 7’ve told you, please." She strongly dislikes publicity. So, she says, do her two boys. . It is not easy to avoid publicity when you do what the Nairn brothers have done. For nearly 19 "years, ever since they saw active service in Palestine, they have run their service in the teeth of ban- _ dits, floods and dust-storms. Latest to "discover" them is English writer H. V. Morton, who writes of them in his new book, just to hand, "Through Lands of The Bible." Four years ago, Mr. G. ("Jerry") Nairn visited New Zealand. He is due to pay another visit towards the end of next month. H. V. Morton travelled with the "Nairn Transport Co.," the service of the two brothers, "e----fhey have made history," he writes. His driver was a_ broad-shoul-dered man over six feet in height. "He was "one of those large men who seem to have a_ schoolboy hiding somewhere inside them." Byerybody called him Long Jack.

Long Jack told H. V. Morton that he had been born in Wellington, New Zealand, and had come to Syria as a boy of 11.

Who is he? Mrs. Nairn did not know; the "Record" could not find out. At one of the Nairn Transport Company’s rest-houses on this journey, H. V. Morton had an English meal, The company offered tomato soup, fried fish, Tartar sauce, roast beef, horse-radish sauce, roast potatoes, eauliflower, Yorkshire pudding, raisin pudding, lemon syrup, fruit, coffee,