CHILD WITH NO NAME

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4537, 16 February 1942, Page 8

CHILD WITH NO NAME

BEGINS A NEW LIFE ORPHAN OF LONDON BLITZ There is a little girl in London whose name no one will ever know. She lost her parents in a raid over London, and from that night she started life all over again. For two years she had been someone’s baby daughter; no one will ever know whose. That first chapter of her life ended one night 15 months ago, when she sat on a London pavement and cried because she was alone and cold and very frightened. Chapter two began when someone heard her cry and took her to the police station. Throughout that night of blitz and in the days and nights of raids that followed, her parents were sought in vain. No one ever claimed the baby without a name, so she was called Ruth and given a surname which commemorated that night when her new life began. * Ruth became the child of the London County Council. They gave her an identity card, a ration book, and a gas mask. She was also given a brand new official birthdate—October 1, 1938—50 that she can have a birthday party every year and a twentyfirst when she comes of age just like any other girl. At Fairfield, the L.C.C. hostel in Dawlish, Devon, for nearly a year Ruth had everything a baby girl needs of her own. Somewhere in London lived a middle-aged couple who were well off and had everything they wanted except a baby girl. Now Ruth has gone to live with them “on approval” for six months. Now and then she will have a visitor, an L.C.C. woman welfare officer, who will call to see that she is really happy. Next March, if all goes well, Ruth will be legally adopted by her new mother and father. When she takes her third name in less than four years she will still be Ruth, but her surname will be that of her foster parents.