Coal And Blanket Fund

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31676, 11 May 1968, Page 12

Coal And Blanket Fund

Sir,— “Lang may your lum reek” was a practical good wish used by Scottish crofters In the old days, visualising a comfortable warm home In the future. Today urban authorities are seeking to reduce air pollution, and this traditional greeting has become archaic. Yet the name of one of our worthier charities, the Mayor’s Coal and Blanket Fund, is reminiscent of a Diekens novel with a plot cast in a mid-Vlctorlan industrial town. In Britain there is concern for old people living alone who suffer the cold because they are unable to keep old-fashioned heating systems stoked up. There is a move for safer and more automated beating in homes for senior citizens, as warm, even temperatures are essential for old people. So should not this charity be renamed to meet the changing and broader needs of the times?—Yours, etc., PATRICK NEARY. April 5,1988. [The Town Clerk of Christchurch (Mr M. B. Hayes) replies: “As the long-established Coal and Blanket Fund serves the purpose for which it is named by providing needy elderly citizens with this type of supplementary assistance during the- winter months, a change of name has not been considered necessary. Council pensioners’ cottages are designed and supplied With fittings to provide the type of

heating desired by your correspondent.”]