FAREWELL TO ENGLAND

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 35, 10 August 1921, Page 12

FAREWELL TO ENGLAND

HUNGARIAN CHILDREN RETURN r . • HOME.

, No. 2 platform at Charing Cross was » rather tearful place on the evening of 15th June last, when 280 of the Hungarian children who were brought to England eleven months ago left to go back to their own country. One, would hardly have reoognisedthem as tho underfed children with spindly limbs and often threadba.ro garments who came over to the care of the English, oommittee last year (says a correspondent in the Manchester Guardian). Their bodies have boon built up with good foody they lvere .rosy and vigorous, and their foster-parents .. had fitted them out nice .olothes. All. the children carried bundles and parcels containing food and other presents from 'th.oße foster-parents to tho real parents at home, and many were oherishing rifts from their English friends and Bohoolfellows. ' They were chattering . excitedly, always in English, for they' have learned /to speak the language Nfluently, and though all care has been taken to their Hungarian associations and memories, many of the younger children have almost forgotten their own language. ' ' The little girl who said to the woman who has mothered her for many months, "It, will be good if we miss the (rain, for then I shall not have to go," echoed 1 the feeling of her comrades. They thought it would be nice to see their own people, again, but they hated the idea of leaving England and the kindly families, who have made them so happy, and real tragedy awaits the older girls and' boys,' who will long remember and miss their playfellows over here. "What do I like so much in England?"/ s»id a pretty schoolgirl who had a copy of "What Katey Did at.School" clasped in her arms. "Everything. I * love' it all. i Some day I shall come back."

_ "It is not really good-bye," said a. little ohap. "I'm coming baok." Others had been console! by promises that their foster-parents would go someday to Hungary, to see them. Some of the English parents, I was told, have already been to Hungary to return the children to their homes and make acquaintance with their parents, and it seems certain that there will for a long time be interohanges of visits as well as of letters.

Lady Maurice, who has charge of the sohomd for visiting all the children in their English homes, and others who had worked for them, agreed that from every point of view the children's stay in England had been^a great success.. There had been children who had moved from the homes to which they were first sent, but they had settled down happily in the end and strong affection had grown up between the adoptive families and schools and the little foreigners.' Even. when school teachers had doubted whether tha experiment were worth trying, the school ohildren had made'it a great success, and villages which were at first inclined to ba hostile had grown fond, of the childl stiangers. 1 ' . , A little English boy perohed on a bookstall was alternately whistling the "Slarseillaise" and screaming farewells to a beloved playfellow who waved to him from a carriage window. It was when the children were all in \he~ carriages that the foster-parents and child friends were'allowed to oome on the platform, and then began the scenes which had previously occurred tt other, centres .of departure. Many of the women and children on the platform were orying at the thought of their loss, and the chil-, dren inside the carriages cried still moro bitterly, for to them the eleven months must have seemed like years, and their hearts were in Eiigland. They wero leaving England, but they were not passing out of the care of tha people who have don© go muoh for them already. An After-Care Committee has been'formed, and wheh the ohildren are back in their own homes they will be- frequently visited and every care taken : \to prevent their losing. the health and robustness which they have gained. Three thousand pounds are required,- so that for/the next six months the families to which these repatriated ohildren belong may receiv* extra rations of cocoa,, fat, and sugar.