LONDONER'S LETTER

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 116, 19 May 1941, Page 4

LONDONER'S LETTER

DESCRIPTION OF A REST

CENTRE

FIRE-WATCHING "A PASTIME"

The following are extracts from a letter received recently by Mrs. Waugh, of the English-speaking Union, Wellington, in appreciation of some gifts sent by the union to sufferers in London. "Your vests with a large batch of other equally useful garments," said the writer, "are now in my care at a London rest centre awaiting a new owner. I am sure you would like to know just what a rest centre is and what it does. This one is in Conway Street not far from Baker Street StaI tion and one of Ihe parts of the Capiital ■'which has had a-very fair share of London's 'blitz.' "When a district suffers in a raid a number of people are made homeless and they are brought to a centre where they are fed and housed temporarily. Bedding is,provided in a safe place and there is a large hall for use as a common-room and a dining-room. A nurse is always on duty with a wellatted sick bay, and the place is made as comfortable as a temporary resting place can be. A wardrobe robm is waiting, from which we fit them"; out ss^best we jcan'-until they'havetgcov- (- ered from shock sufficiently to .get to the authorities who supply money for1 necessaries. ' . THE STAFF'S DUTIES. "We have, a small staff of ten workers," the letter continues, "and work in two shifts of "five for stretches of 24 hours, with a few extra volunteers to help. These latter are getting scarcer as more people are absorbed into the Army or war industries, and you can imagine that on bad occasions when we get our full complement of 150 homeless people, five people working for 24 hours are pretty busy. We include 'fire watching' for incendiary bombs among our pastimes. "My duties as welfare adviser include reclothing, consoling, directing people to the correct places to get he^lp financially, seeking lost relations, finding new homes, or evacuating those who wish to go to the country. "WHAT THE PRESS SAYS IS TRUE." "We all love our work and I am sure you would like to know from one who is constantly in touch with people hiade homeless and bereaved through air raids, that what the Press says is true;— Londoners and English folk 'take it.' and nothing Germany can do I can 'afreet our resolve to see it through and stand up to any frightfulness thati comes.

"The rock on which we are alll building and to which we cling joyfully: is the solid unity we all have in the Empire to carry the whole affair through, and as the men meet in the field, in the air, or on the sea, so it is at times when we meet little cards like yours on' the garments you send with such loving thought that wejfeql that the Empire bond of women is just as great and solid."'' '