Jim and I have been discussing about why Alf felt compelled to enlist, he was 37 married with two young boys. It cannot have been an easy decision no matter what ones personal or political opinions are. It was a decision that had a profound impact for the rest of his life. The follwing are responses by his son Noel.
"The problem about work in1939 was the action of the goverment of the day having been involved in promoting work for unemployed had an activity called Govrnment housing Scheme because of so much unemployment 1935/6/7/8 your father will be able to correct me on that issue and when we came to Ch CH it was all to the benefit of us workless unfortunates that the jobs were there for, skilled and labourers Etc
As I explained earlier the Govt of the day decided that materials were going to be scarce because of the war housing had to take a back seat so out of the Govt mouths came the order shut down the work schemes and we had plenty of fellows looking to feed their families so off to the army recruitihg offices they went in droves ,the army pay was a godsend to many and this also had its backlash because after the enlistment of so many at one time the families were in deep strife and we had to exist for about nine weeks waitng for army pay hence working wifes were the mainstay for many and I tell you it sticks in my memory. That photo of gordon and myself in the square CH Ch were just about all the clothes that we were wearing that we had" Noel Andreassend 2009
"That remark of yours reminded me about the work force being denuded for the state house projects left a bitter pill and there were unemployed guys standing about the square, but there people organised to see that the armed forces could use people who were able to join up.Those that didn,t want to be part of the war soon made themselves scarce.Sometimes there were uniform chaps deserters who would come and ask if you could help them out for a few shillings and I felt very sorry for them,most of the chaps in the army were very staunch but everybody is not built of the same stuff and I came across some fellows later who had to be repatriated back to NZ
You may have heard of concensious war objectors and these ones put to camps out of the city and put to work on farms etc and imprisoned as well but who is right??
The Cathedral square was interesting in those days there were still horse cabs lining up in the square they didn,t need petrol you see, the most i ever saw were four and well they were a sight to see. There are some very good photo copies in our museum." Noel Andreassend 2009
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