Sometimes there is an
exhibition match on the best billiard table: the local champion of
Wandsworth shows us his skill--and a very pretty touch he has: once the
lady billiard champion of England came, and defeated the best opponent
we could enlist against her--an event which provoked tremendous applause
from a packed congregation of boys in blue.
The old recreation room is fitted with a permanent stage for theatricals
and concerts. It is also our "Movie Palace." (I think our hospital was
the first to instal a cinematograph as a fixture.) During the morning
the floor area is dotted with miniature billiard tables--which are never
for a moment out of use. In the afternoon these are removed; some
hundreds of chairs replace them; and at 4.30 we begin an
entertainment--music, a play (we have had Shakespeare here), lantern
slides, films, or what not. Those entertainments, which have continued
unbrokenly since the hospital began to function in 1914, constitute the
outstanding feature of the "good time" enjoyed by 3rd Londoners. The
"Old Rec." and its crowded concerts will be a memory cherished by hosts
of fighting men from the homeland and from overseas.
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