PATHE GAZETTE NO.613, TORQUAY - "GOOD-BYE "DIGGER"

New Zealand soldiers didn't always return from the First World War alone - sometimes they brought a wife or even an infant child, a "little digger", back with them as this item from a post-war Pathe Gazette newsreel shows.

"The film shows the departure of 22 officers and 328 other ranks, together with some 60 wives and their children, following a march through the town to a cheering crowd. They assemble on the wharf and are taken by tender to the SS Ruahine, that, because of its size, was anchored out in the bay. We see the married soldiers holding, and in some cases bottle-feeding, their children, while their smiling wives and family members look on. It was one of three sailings from Torquay in November 1919." (Christopher Pugsley, The Camera in the Crowd, p.415)