MODERN HOUSING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26746, 15 April 1948, Page 8

MODERN HOUSING

LORD BEVERIDGE’S INTEREST “I am really distressed that I have not had time to thank everyone for the delightful flowers and fruit, and for their kind messages,” Lady Beveridge said in an interview with the Daily Times. She said that at the end of a long life she was still interested in eyerything, but Lord Beveridge laughingly hinted that his wife’s chief interest lay in her seven grandchildren. Lady Beveridge assured her husband that, after himself, her chief concern was probably for her grandchildren, but, outside her home, she confessed to a passionate interest in housing and youth welfare. Their picturesque home, with two statues of Buddha (brought from India by Lord Beveridge’s parents) on the terrace, is in Northumberland. The oldest part of the house dates from 1560, and, although it appears to be very large, the rooms are comparatively small, and Lady Beveridge has kept house without any resident staff since 1941, in spite of the tremendous call on her time through her public work. Casual help is all that is available. which is probably why she is so anxious to see the latest labour-saving devices incorporated in the modern Government house.

Lady Beveridge is a graduate of St Andrew’s University, where her special interests were mathematics and philosophy. Both her daughters, too, have made their mark in the literary and scholastic world, the elder. Dr Lucy Mair, having published several books on colonial administration, while the younger, Mrs Gwilt, is known as a brilliant mathematician.

Lady Beveridge herself has taken a keen interest in her husband’s book, “India Called Them,” which has just been published in England. This book is a love story from real life in the vanished world of British India. It is based, in the main, on letters written to one another by the author’s parents, in the frequent separations made unavoidable for European families by the Indian climate. The letters have been knit together by the author to form an absorbing continuous story. Of the people of Britain, Lady Beveridge said, “We are quite determined to make the two ends meet. That is, we are going to buy from another country only what we can afford to pay for, and we are prepared to go short to get on an even keel again. Changing over from a wartime basis to a full-production scheme cannot be done without a certain amount of disorganisation, but Britain is not discouraged.”