Fuzzy-wuzzy Pen Friend!
p. 30 · Read in the full issue
rE following was published in the issue of the Sydney “Sun” of June 26: “First letter from a new fuzzy-wuzzy pen friend named Mooka Hoolam has reached Mr.
Laurie Trezise, of Bondi.
“It was enclosed in one from Mr. Trezise’s cousin, Pte. Bob Lynch, tvho is a cook with a unit serving in New Guinea. It read:— “ ‘Dear lorie, i rite U this letter. U one big brudder tel me you like big boy Mooka rite U.
I no no what 4 U want me rite. I no body.
U name. Then U big brudder tell me bout U.
I tell U bout me. I 16 year. I carry dyed Aussies and dye finis Aussi in jungle and I lern to rite off Aussie. I got mary 4 kid one dye finish and leave 3. If U rite me one fella Mooka send to U big brudder. E sen me and I read U letter. From U frend Mooka.’
“The letter is written in a large and sprawl ing hand and stamped by the military censor.”
Territorians are here permitted to spit fire and fury—and a dense, sulphuric smoke-screen will be thrown over subse
quent proceedings.
This is a good example of the kind of thing with which returning Territorians will have to deal, after the war. Soldiers in New Guinea, and the poor unsuspect ing “pen friends” in Australia, have no idea at all of how to treat these jungle children—people of the Stone Age—and no suspicion of the trouble they are pil ing up for those who must re-establish social order in the Territories.