Where charity stops at home in U.K.

Press, 1 November 1977, Page 16

Where charity stops at home in U.K.

By KATHARINE WHITEHORN London

The difference between the British and the French is that most of the French live in the country but know that Paris is the centre of the universe; whereas most of the British work in towns but are quite certain country life is the only one worth living. The rising British executive, as soon as he can scrape together the mortgage, moves into some suburb he can just about call a village; his daughters learn to ride, he may even appear in riding breeches on Sunday himself; and his wife will buy a dog, take to tweeds and busy herself with pastoral pursuits. It is when you actually get to the pastoral pursuits that the dream begins to drag a bit; they look at all the women who live there already and wonder what you actually do in the country — when not unblocking the drains, riding to hounds or pruning the blackcurrent bushes.

A terrifying sample of what the British countrywomen do get up to was on display last week at a big London department store, Debenhams, in Oxford Street, where they opened a whole section to the craft work of that enormous, venerable half million strong club of countrywomen, the Women’s Institute. All in aid of the Jubilee Fund, which aims to give funds to the young to help them help other people. NOT SO TRENDY

“Craft’s very trendy isn’t it, let’s face it” said the store manager; but what was on show was scarcely the sort of

craft you can get, now that the Welsh, for example, have pulled themselves together and started marketing marvellous wools and blankets and patchworks; these were amateur and most of them looked it. Crates and crates of the stuff had come in from all over the country: baby clothes by the ton, crocheted table mats, bright cushions, stuffed cartoon animals, flower pictures. I concealed myself between a stuffed Muppet and a hand-stitched Snoopy and studied the gang. For the women, too, had come up in busloads and trainloads to see and buy. In their low-heeled shoes and powdery pastels they were easily distinguished from the native Londoners, wearing jeans and plastic macs and sour expressions; also from those who normally fill London’s busiest shopping street these days, who variously dress in little felt hats. American checked trousers and yashmaks.

The ladies were not altogether delighted by what they found. “I thought there was to be a whole floor.” “You can hardly see it, really.” Practised though they must be at fighting to a finish through sales of work, they found the moiling throng round the display cases daunting, and many retired to look round the usually better-made, better-designed and infinitely-more-useful things that had been made with (oh, how disgusting) machines. “One always thinks one must have sympathy with people who’ve tried to do their best,” said one of the organisers reprovingly. Well, perhaps. But is it their best? and if so, isn’t that just awful? They are toe-covers, that’s what

they are — which is, for those who don’t spend every wet Wednesday reading Betty Macdonald, objects made because someone enjoys the making of them, not for the end result — a category which includes tooled leather bookmarks, satin cases for snap fasteners, hand-made clothespeg sachets and hand-knitted cases for knitting needles. RURAL BOREDOM I saw a gold lurex pow-der-compact cover for a pound; a set of glasses, already hideous, made more so by engraving on the glass; lumpy pots, unlikable ashtrays; lampshades that looked like hats and hats that looked like lampshades. Sure, there were pretty things —- lovely baby clothes, some exquisite patchwork — but the vast majority of it was as gruesome a monument to rural boredom as I have ever seen gathered together in one place. And this is in a country with a great tradition of voluntary work; and one which, only a week before, has seen the publication of a booklet about children in residential homes, which emphasised that half the trouble was that they didn’t really have anyone to watch out for them.

These children, just to ram the point home, are not delinquents — at least not to start with; they are the kids who must be taken care of because their parents are homeless or hopeless or dead or in jail; children whose parents may be too violent for them to be left with them; and a residential home is a very bad second best to any sort of real life in a proper home. I assume the makers of all

these ghastly tea cosies and lace table runners would consider themselves homemakers; and if I was prepared to be charitable I would say that I daresay a great many of them do both — make tat for charity and have neglected kids into their homes. But if they do have all this time on their hands, why don’t they use it? Why don’t they do a job instead of all this? I asked one of the fund organisers. “Well, for a start” she said defensively, “the tax structure makes it so impossible for the employers to hire anyone part time.” So why don’t they change the tax structure? A pressure group of half a million women surely ought to be able to achieve something. But no, they would rather do this, which will raise money for this splendid charity — the fund to help the young to help others. If you ask me, the best help the young could give anyone is making sure they never get to the state where this is their way of life. — O.F.N.S. Copyright.