WORK FOR CONVICTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23284, 1 March 1939, Page 5

WORK FOR CONVICTS

ENGLISH GIRL'S SCHEME An amazing scheme for the employment of convicts was recently started in Kngland by Miss Deirdre du Barry, 21-year-old Mayfair girl, who adapted her turkey farm and a 3000-acre shoot near Tenterden, Kent, for a training ground where ex-convicts learn to work cm the land and regain their self-con-fidence. Miss du Barry, who conies of the same family as the famous ■Mine, du Barrv, of the 18th century French Court, has been helping convicts and tluMr families for three years. Miss du Barry began her scheme when an old nurse of hers got her interested in a young Irish boy who was in Brixton gaol for stealing £2OOO worth of bonds. When he was transferred to Wandsworth Miss du Barry got his clothes and kept them for him and when he was released from gaol she paid his passage hack to Ireland. Since then Miss du Barry has employed nine ex-convicts at difierent times in her own household. Tenterden Manor, to give them their first jobs and good references. One of the men *he uot into the army and another a job as a seaman, while two of them she soul back to Lancashire and two to Wales. On the turkey farm are bred turkeys, chickens and pheasants, and Miss du Barry has made room for 15 or 20 more men. If the farm pays for itself. w'U' - out profits. Mi«s du Barrv is satisfied, mid she has found so far that most of the men have* shown cratitude for her help by their subsequent good behaviour.