"HEARTBREAK HOUSE."

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 223, 19 September 1940, Page 12

"HEARTBREAK HOUSE."

CHATELAINE HONOURED.

In recognition of her work as chatelaine of "Heartbreak House," Miss J. Warner, a kindly, middle-aged woman, has been awarded the OJB.E. In a room in the Palace of St. James she is to be found for 12 hours every day—and often seven days a week—reading the war's most poignant letters.

Miss Warner is the head of the "foreign office" of the British Red Cross Society, and it is her job to provide a link between thousands of anxious peof Ie in England and their relatives lost in Poland, Norway, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Holland and the Channel Isles. Each day thousands of inquiries pass through her letter box, and long lines.of people visit "Heartbreak House" to interview her.

1 It wm only when Hitler unrolled hie winding sheet over Europe that families were separated on a scale never known before. The chatelaine of "Heartbreak House," with a few friends, decided to iclp in the task of soothing the. mental anguish of their relatives and. friends. Today 65 people work with her. All, except the shorthand-typist, work unpaid. They send all addresses and particulars -to the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva where, after "being filed, copies •axe sent to the countries wv^nM*L