MISSING PERSONS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13269, 20 February 1941, Page 7

MISSING PERSONS

pathetic tales tkacinc. victims of WAR . „ AV'ic a "Heartbreak «r;; fH»" sc houses off Bedford U G '°;' Rloomsbury. It btipttens I f qua f <• a pjje of rubble which Itobe ,v A . its windows were wl, ’, n (he homb tell next door, < ° ff ”« h rtl.reak House” is still one W , busiest Pl»« s in London. ' “Sydney Morning Herald." K ,'ls oettse in which the missions, established by the Nar S Council of social Service and "ortcl by the British Red Cross. r UPP vorv day, four people—one Ini an" expert in registers-eope * ‘ “,t must be one of the largr B ,|l, in London. When the baI . was opened the organisers I” „ ht it advisable to begin with as Im. publicity as possible, so that |1 ,„ ff would have a chance of I iheir registers, before athel, actual work began. p'JJcn a Sit announcement of its inception SI f l-en over the air. Letters lein to pour Into the neat little GeorLlan house. Frightened Children I They are still pouring in. There L inters from wives and letters Lorn husbands. Letters from childL n who have been evacuated from Lir homes into the country. They L.ve not heard from their mothers lor several days. They are frighten- - 8 Even children in the country tad about the bomb attacks on London. Mr Weeks, social service worker, who has been made head of London’s new bureau, told me [bout a letter he had received from [n old lady in Ireland. Her granddaughter— a child of nine—had written from Wales telling her that |he thought her mother had been jdlled. What could the bureau do? be bureau made inquiries through fone of the members of the Council »r and her two brothers had been of Social Service. The child’s mothlilled. I To-day, while I was there; a teller came from a London woman who lad gone to fire country with her /mall children/ Her husband was driving a can for a firm of carriers on a route which, on the ground, ps practically the same as the sky route some of the Nazi bombers take I . In their way to London. She had lot heard from her husband for a - J week. She was running short of taoney. Again—what could we do? “It was an easy letter to read. It j |ras ill-spelt aud muddled. She did Sot know the name of the firm em■pytog her husband, but she knew Ip name which used to be on the if2n before it changed hands. The ijpreau was going to start from ■pre. I Pathetic Appeals |p "This is a case in which the buj||eau will go further than trying to BN this woman’s husband,” Mr If* sa id. “She needs financial || el P at once. We will pass that °f it on to the local service porkers. In the meantime we will lr e what we can do.” These pathetic inters convey some idea of the li| a »ony of the women who || e ,a '' eu their younger children ■T comparative safety—leaving be- ' l^em their older sons and i f Jshters > husbands, parents, sisIj ' Hundreds of inquiries come I recovering from ia, hospital. “Sometimes .’ ha\e no idea of what happened 1 0 resi of { heir family after the ! U lt is the last thing hey ember," Mr Weeks said. "The .. “ otlfy the next-of-kin in the [ r . 0 ,^ ea *h. but sometimes an cure ' s hilled. Sometimes they iabm!* 1 ' Woun( ied. Quite often C? iT::v yho ' you must 1%. !« 6 v,orkln S at top speed -fa ar difficult conditions Sl®!lv tn 6 me mber of one # a hospital.” d Missing H'ic/rl' the bureau "'as asked * 4is “PPeared° f 'u Wh ° had Slm ‘ ;t * he was known J ; sib fel] Walkiu S home when a he h ®°® ewhere between the a and his home. the burp ot home ’ His family w or l p t 0 find him ’ s^al [lf k- lhe xaoru “ arched the hospiir But t v. an?S ’ He was never ,y to teulP W3S eno «Sh evi.jt M* •*, ot I ? hfe I ° fteu d0 ' in i a gy., ck ness that they I I 6qu ads LVr h ’ n6t sißht--1 aVe fou »d it i.m-

possible to evolve any system which will save relatives from wondering —where? and are they alive? These are questions which the people of London cannot be spared, but they can be told more quickly.

Working in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, the local authorities, and the police, the bureau has begun to compile registers of the people of London, Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Newcastle. They are based on the original home address, and are compiled with the help of information provided by local billeting authorities.

"Often, of course, we have to answer inquiries with the worst possible news, but I am glad to be able to say that at least 50 per cent, of 6,ur inquiries have been answered with the news that these people are alive and well, and that the delay in communication was only due to their having been moved away from bombed areas. Sometimes anxiety is caused simply because people have forgotten to answer letters. I am afraid that many Londoners do not apreciate how often people outside of London think of them," Mr Weeks said. Haiti Questions Most difficult to answer are inquiries from relatives who had not thought of their people for many years—until the . blitzkrieg began "We do not want to encourage that kind of inquiry." Mr Weeks said: "Our Avork is more pressing and more immediate." And then there are other inquiries—sometimes from women who have not seen or heard for some days of men whom they are going to marry. They ask the bureau to find out if they are hurt or if they are in hospital and cannot write. In at least two instances these girls' fiances were not in hospital. They just did not want to write.

"In such instances all we can do is to say that we have made inquiries and the men in question are all right," Mr Weeks said. "We try to write as tactfully as possible." "It isn't easy,' he added. Check and double check "on the bureau's files is provided by a system of filing in quadruple. One copy stays in the shaken old Georgian house; a second goes to the local authority of each borough; a third goes to the local citizens' advice bureau, and the fourth to the welfare officer of the Army Command. The social service at "Heartbreak House" are not taking any .chances.