WOMAN'S HAPPY TITLE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20182, 26 June 1928, Page 11

WOMAN'S HAPPY TITLE

EAST END’S “GOOD FAIRY” KID LEWIS AS A PUPIL. Fairy-Godmother of the Ward of St. George in the East End of London! ” This is the proud and happy title hold by Miss Hannah Hyam, who lately completed 36 years of social work in the East. End. To fittingly mark the occasion she has been presented with a, cheque for £lOO and an album signed by 6G9 of her friends. Miss Hyam recently had a holiday, but she was hard at work again as soon as she returned. “I feel much safer in the East End of London <it night than in the West End,” she said. “I don’t know why people think it is a dreadful place. I have spent practically all my life here, and I have never seen, anything very dreadful in th« streets. Yet quite recently when I asked a teacher to come here she declined with a shudder.” Miss Hyam says she considers that St. George’s is a changed place in these days compared with a generation ago. “I recall when children ran about the streets Knrcfootcd, and when in a school you could see a whole class of children without boots,” she said. “At Berners Street school we used to have to give 150 dinners to children daily; now less than a score are given. Tho people’s 1 homes are cleaner, healthier and better furnished. Tho children are icry keen to go to school, find truancy is almost unknown.” “Then there are the social settlements and different organisations which brighten things up. It is a great help to get educated people down in the East End forming social centres and helping in the work with councils, guardians, Labour Exchanges, and juvenile advisory committees. “Our greatest task in the East End is to place the young people in suitable employment. In »St. George’s there are a number of skilled trades calling for apprentices—tailoring, boot-making, end dressmakings—but we have real difficulty with the dull and the clover children. It is a tremendous difficulty to get a clever boy into a situation where his brains and ideas will tell. We manage to get them into architects’ offices, banks, and into the professions. Sometimes they become scholars, but when they get their degrees they often have difficulty in getting work. “Some boys try to follow boxing as a profession, but it is a short-lived one and one with little reward. T say this in spite of the fact that Kid Lewis was in one of my classes! Wc do not encourage professional boxing.’’ “Miss Hye.in is a wonderful woman,” said Captain Henriques, warden of tho St. George’s Jewish Settlement, to an ’nterviewot. “She has a trcmendoui sense of humour, and is a great worker. She never gives up anything she seti her mind upon. She has also an astounding memory, and can recall the names of children in families she knew 20 years ago. She has never been in the limelight, but wc very proud of her.”