By mid-May Cliff was in Palestine. They’d travelled there by train in goods vans and cattle trucks, a stop-and-start journey and a good deal of it at night while they tried to sleep. The following is from Cliff’s letters home to Dorothy. ~ Ian
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The first part of the journey through the desert was very monotonous, especially when we crossed the border. Later we passed miles and miles of orange trees, barley crops, potatoes and all sorts of vegetables. It was wonderful to see all of the greenery again after all the time we’d spent in the desert. The orange season is almost over and there are only a few left on the trees, but they are available by the truckload and are very cheap, and frequently buckshee. The houses are very similar to those back home. We could easily imagine we were in New Zealand.
We were immediately struck by the difference in the people here to the people in Egypt. Most were white, Jewish, and very friendly. It was wonderful to be able to wave to the children and get a smile and wave in return. In Egypt they would ignore you unless they were the poorer classes and begged for “baksheesh”. This camp named Kfar Vitkin is situated on the outskirts of a Jewish collective farm of that name. It could be called a communal settlement or village and we had an interesting time discovering how the system works.
We took a walk down to the village, a lovely place with tiny cottages, each with a small section of land and a little garden and cowshed. It is wonderful to hear birds singing, to smell the hay and flowers, and even the good old cow yard smell reminds me very pleasantly of home. There are dozens of well-dressed and spotlessly clean children, and very fine looking kiddies too, playing in the roadways, healthy and happy, and it does one’s heart good to watch them. They speak little English but nearly all of them greet you with a very polite and pleasant “hello”. No begging here. The people will give things to you but they won’t take money.
We saw some beautiful big grapefruit heaped up in one garden and asked the chap if we could buy some. He didn’t speak a word of English, but beckoned us to come in and help ourselves, which we did. Afterwards we went to pay for them, but no, he wouldn’t take anything. They use donkeys here mostly, but in one place we saw a nice looking pony, just like Peter [Dorothy’s horse], and went in to look at him. The chap from next door came over to talk to us, and we went into the cowshed to see the owner of the property milk his cows. The neighbour was a physical instructor at the local school and both were Russians, as are dozens around here.
The instructor spoke a little English and we learnt a little of the collective farming system from him. He came from Kyiv and was educated in Germany, where he learned his job as PT instructor. He liked Germany but not the Nazi regime, and had been here for 10 years.
Each farmer has his own little cottage in the village and a small section of about 2 acres, where he grows his own vegetables, runs his two or three cows, and keeps hens and anything else he may desire. Then there is a big common farm where they grow their oranges and crops, and where each farmer must work a certain number of hours each day. They use modern machinery, and everything in the communal farm is done on a big scale. The surplus milk from the cows is taken to a factory in the village, although I’m not sure what happens to it there, and their surplus eggs are also marketed. Each farmer receives his hourly wage, and the money accumulated, after wages and expenses are paid, is spent on buildings, improvements and farm equipment in the settlement.
They have their old age benefit fund, and when a man is ill his wages are paid as per usual. The system is not controlled by the government and the people are working for themselves, and controlling it themselves through their committees and trade union. That is where the scheme differs from Russian collective farming, where everything is state controlled. Here they can grow many crops a year, and they hand feed the cattle with green clover, hay, grapefruit and one or two other things that I couldn’t name. Fancy feeding cattle on grapefruit, and they sure like them too. They cut eight crops of clover a year, one of those for seed. They grow most things here, and I’ve even seen one or two plantations of bananas.
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Cliff was interested to learn that they were using artificial fertilisation to breed their cattle, something that clearly hadn’t arrived in New Zealand yet. It was very successful, and consequently there were only four bulls in the whole farming settlement. He’d been told how it was done, and wanted to see for himself. He didn’t know whether Dorothy knew about it, and it would be rather difficult to explain, so “I’ll just leave it at that.”
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Arthur and I went to Tel Aviv yesterday, which was the Jewish Sabbath, and believe me they keep it very strictly. No Jewish buses run that day so we had to walk to the main road, about 3 miles, and catch an Arab bus for the rest of the journey. However our luck was in and we hitch-hiked the 43 miles, first in a car to the main road and then on a ration truck, followed by the biggest part of the journey in a V8 15CWT driven by a Greek. The latter was the fastest trip I’ve done in the army as we did over 60 mph all the way. The Jews were just leaving after their morning service when we arrived, and the streets were crowded. First of all we had a feed — and a shock when the waitress gave us our bill. Meals are terribly expensive and it costs about four shillings to get a really good feed.
Then we headed to the beach and, oh boy, what a crowd. There were thousands of them. The people are all well dressed and nice looking, and as Arthur said, he couldn’t get over the sight of so many lovely girls and women. All the people are fine healthy looking specimens, most of them nicely sun-tanned. The beach and promenade are lovely. Right along it are cafes and the like, deck chairs, and ice cream and soft drink stands. Arthur and I had a swim and spent the whole afternoon there.
The biggest job is trying to find somewhere to get changed, but we found a boat shed and paid an Arab to guard our clothes for the afternoon. The most popular way to change seems to be to wrap a towel around yourself and change underneath it. Of course we would never look when anyone was getting changed, but it’s annoying the way these girls can effectively conceal themselves behind those towels!
We had another meal at one of the beach cafes and then headed to the bus stop. All the buses were crowded and we were fortunate to get a ride this time, so for the sake of comfort and fresh air we took to the luggage rack on the roof. At the crossroads we were lucky again to get a ride from there into camp by truck.
Don’t take any notice of the old idea that Jews are misers and money grabbers, for my word they’re not here. While I was on guard this afternoon the boys were visiting the orchards and coming back with sacks of oranges and grapefruit, all there for the taking. I haven’t had much opportunity myself but quite a lot of my cobbers have been invited out to meals at different houses, and even though they speak a different language they seem to enjoy being there, and the people enjoy having them.
Please give my love to Mum and Dad and all at home. Tell them I like the look of this place but New Zealand is still the best. Do you feel fully grown up yet Dot? I do wish you were here. You would love this place and we could have a lovely time together. We are very lucky to see all these places and as you said before we should make the best of it. If we only had these opportunities in peacetime. All going well I think this rotten war will be over in a few months.
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They were sorry to leave. The villagers invited the troops along to a festival, a celebration of some sort, everyone dressed up nicely, flowers in their hair, the kids performing songs and dances, donkey carts decorated with greenery and flowers and carrying offerings of vegetables, fruit, eggs and poultry. At night the troops reciprocated with a concert put on by their band.