WARTIME BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 106, 31 October 1941, Page 5

WARTIME BRITAIN

HOW ONE TOWN GREW

MINISTER GIVES DETAILS

RUGBY, October 29. The Minister of Health, Mr. Ernest a Brown, in the course of a speech today, " r described the manner in which a, typil cal small town in Britain overcame the , difficulties of a sudden expansion of its residents to the needs of industry. He said that just over two years ago the plac% he had in mind was "a very comfortable market town with a distinguished place in medieval history and a very creditable record in local administration, but no experience of modern industry." It had a population of about 25,000. With the war came a complete transformation. A large ordnance factory was built and /the fields on one side of the town became an aerodrome. Away on the other side of the town a large military camp sprang up. Under the emergency hospital scheme the , local hospital was expanded by 400 ■ beds. : "We sent to the town 1000 mothers and children," Mr. Brown said. "They were promptly billeted. There were a large number of private evacuees, and an army of workers arrived, first to build the ordnance factory and then man it. Within a month, of the outbreak of war the population had risen to 29,000. MORE ROOM NEEDED. "Soon afterwards it became clear that more room was wanted for the men and women on vital war work. Some classes of evacuees were moved out, and the town council set up a lodging bureau to find billets for the steady stream of transferred workers. "Today the town's population is 34,000. The town is tackling its problems resolutely :and in its own way, and carrying on with good will. "There are hundreds of other towns doing the same. Hundreds of thousands of war workers have been billeted. "This great revolution could not have < been carried through had it not been : for two things. The first, that between the two wars we built more than 4,000,000 houses and spent many millions in improving ...the .health, * water, and other public services.. . £ "The second is that the authorities of t these receiving areas have tackled 5 their urgent problems in the finest spirit of local democracy—by demo- v cratic teamwork, by real' partnership ' between council officials and voluntary Jj workers and householders."—B.O.W. jj