SHELTER FOR REFUGEES

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LX, Issue 16, 28 February 1939, Page 2

SHELTER FOR REFUGEES

SELECT CHELTENHAM

INDIGNANT

OBJECTIONS TO BILLETING

CHILDREN

(From The Guardian's London

Correspondent)

LONDON, January 28

Cheltenham, the famous Gloucestershire spa and home of countless retired military men and clergy, is up in arms at the suggestion that it should provide shelter for refugee women and children from Birmingham in the event of a war. The inhabitants of this select neighbourhood are holding indignation meetings to protest against the Government's billeting proposals arid against their own mayor's appeal for co-operation. The mayor Wrote: "It is particularly important to know in which houses children could be lodged, boarded and cared for. Payment would be made by the Government . . .""

Major H. Brooke Murray, member of the county council, said this week: "Who answers for the honesty and cleanliness of these children whoever they are? Are we to take in people promiscuously? We are told that we must house 17,000 people. There are only 14,000 houses in this town including council houses. They say we are to take in one person per room. I suppose we ohall have them sleeping in our drawing-room." His wife interposed: "Only over my dead body. These strange children, are they going to respect my china? Who will discipline them? Who is going to provide beds, linen and crockery? That's what I want to know. And who is going to cook and wash and do the housework? Ten and sixpence a week from the Government means nothing to me. We have had our maid for seven years—a very nice girl—but she has informed me that we could not expect her to stay If we add children to the household."