AIR RAID VICTIMS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21867, 21 January 1941, Page 8

AIR RAID VICTIMS

LONDON’S NEW BUREAU OF MISSING PERSONS If ever there was a “Heartbreak House” it is one of the old-fashioned Georgian houses off Bedford Square, in Bloomsbury. It happens to be next to a pile of rubble which was once a hotel. Its windows were broken and its ceilings were shaken down when the bomb fell next door, but “Heartbreak House” is still one of the busiest places in London. This is London’s new bureau of missing persons, established bv the National Council of Social Service and supported by the British Red Cross.

Here, every day, four people—one of them an expert in registers—cope with what must be one of the largest mails in London. x c A brief announcement of its inception was given, after which letters began to pour into the neat little Georgian house. They are still pouring in. There are letters from wives and letters from husbands, letters from children who have been evacuated from their homes into the country. They have not heard from their mothers for several days and they are frightened. Working in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, the local authorities, and the police, the bureau has begun to compile complete registers of the people of London, Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, Liverpool and Newcastle. They are based on the original home address, and are. compiled with the help of information provided by local billeting authorities.