WORKERS OF MIRACLES

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 82, 31 December 1940, Page 4

WORKERS OF MIRACLES

British Red Cross In London Silly, touching things have happened since the blitzkrieg began, writes Betty Wilson from Loudon to the “Sydney Morning Herald.” Things th-at happen, for instance, when a family comes out of its Anderson shelter and finds llml there is a bomb crater edged with splintered wood where the house used to be. Or when someone I wakes up in hospital and liuds that a hospital nightgown is the only possession he htts in the world. The Women’s Voluntary Services have done magniliccut work collecting and distributing clothes. Through their workers, families who have been bombed out have' been supplied with their immediate necessities. With shoes and top-coats. Even with handbags. But that slill leaves them without things I hat we have become so used to that we do not think about them till we have not got them. Toothbrushes, for instance. Someone had to Hud toolhhrtishes. and tooth paste, and soap. Hair combs and medicines. False leelh. Spectacles. Well, someone did find them. That someone was the British Red Cross. 11. is strange to think about it—llml Ihis organization, which is possibly one of the largest and most intricate organizations in the world, should have bothered with lhese small, unforeseen things. If toothbrushes were needed, it found them. It found tinned milk for 200 children who had to be rushed to a centre away from the bombed areas. They would have Iwtd bully beef instead of milk if it bad not been for the Red Cross, Money lias been rushed to where money was needed. Often by special messenger. Nurses were found for shelters and installed there while other social workers —dazed by (lie rush of events —were talking about it. At St. James's Palace, a special section of the Red Cross packs and dispatches 10,000 parcels every week to prisoners of war. Mobile Hospital Units.

Mobile hospital units .arrive at bombed areas while the bombs are still falling. Red Cross nurses are there within a few minutes after the disaster has occurred. They are on the spot ready to treat cases immediately they have been brought out of the wreckage. “1 don’t know how they do it. Maylie, they’ve wings. Sometimes I think they have.” one of the rescue squad said. The County of London Section of the British Red Cross —responsible for all Red Cross activities within 26 boroughs, totalling a population of something like eight million —reflects Ihe jireeision to which the Red Cross has brought its cry of “Speed and Mobility.” Tlte Countess of Limerick—tall, dark, tmd elegant in the well-known navy blue uniform —is the London section’s president. Site and the county secretary work at Red Cross headquarters, which arc housed in an impressive, but old-fashioned, building in Grosvenor Crescent. Tills building, with its lofty ceilings and curving staircase, is known as the "emergency help centre.” It may have been designed in more leisurely days, but there is certainly nothing leisurely about it. A Nerve Centre. This building is the nerve centre of the entire London organization. It receives London's .SOS's. Next door, on either side, two large houses have been turned into emergency wardrobes for the bombed-out families of London. Everything is stored ready lo band there. Food, clothing. Great cases of them. “What are we asked for most?” the V.A.D. in charge said. “Patent baby foods, woollen clothing, tmd false teeth. In that order,” she added. Local authorities say that, these supplies materialize so quickly that they are inclined to regard it as a miracle.

Lady Limerick says Ibat if it were not for the local authorities Hie British Red Cross emergency help could not function with anything like its present speed. The families whom they are feeding and clothing believe it is a miracle, too. So do the women in the communal 1 air-raid shelters. Babies have been born there, with these young Red Cross nurses acting as doctor and midwife. So do the medical tmd nursing staffs of London's large hospitals which have been bombed. Lady Limerick told me of one instance when the Red Cross had been appealed to as bombs began to fall round a big hospital. Twelve nurses were there within 15 minutes after Hie telephoned appeal. Many of the. V.A.D.’s working with Hie society’s mobile hospital units go without mueh-uoeded sleep to help man the units and keep them working at pressure. Some of these girls have jobs which keep them busy all day. At night they gel out of their office frocks into the society's neat blue print dress, white apron, and cap. Their work begins when (he raiders come over. Sometimes it does not finish till it is time to get into their office clothes again.

Heroines of the war. their only pride is tlie pride of maintaining a tradition which began when soldiers left their homes to light. It lias not grown less now that their own homes have become Britain’s front line.