LONDON SCENE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 124, 28 May 1942, Page 4

LONDON SCENE

FEMININE WAR WORKERS

PROBLEM OF YOUXG CHILDREN

The Ministry of Health, in consultation with the Board of Education, has taken a step in the right direction in the attempt to solve problems confronting feminine war workers who have young children to consider. Women already appointed in different parts of the country to advise on the children's welfare are women of considerable experience. The Marchioness of Reading, serving in the Midlands region, has always devoted a great part of her time to the interests of small people. She is chairman of the council of the National Society of Day Nurseries; she serves also on the committee of the National Council for Maternity and Child Welfare, and takes an active part in many associated organisations. She allows no job to be a sinecure, and in this respect resembles the Dowager Marchioness of Reading, of Women's Voluntary Services, of which the child care advisers in the Northern and Southern Regions are members.

"Jest Crowed" If you ask women of the hospitality section of the American Outpost in London how the section came into being, they would probably tell you that, like Topsy, it "jest growed." But it has an office of its own at headquarters now, and on the wall is a map of the British Isles dotted with little yellow spikes indicating American and British homes open to Americans serving here. Lots of people have expressed a wish to do something for them, the Kinsmen, a group of British parents whose children are being cared for by American foster parents, being specially anxious to reciprocate kindness. Friends of newly arrived Americans are also traced; men stationed in isolated spots are introduced to Outposters in the district; and friendly contacts are brought about for fellow citizens in places as remote as Archangel and Iceland.

Make and Mend In establishing a clothing campaign sub-committee, the Women's Group on Public Welfare is doing a practical job of work in these rationed days. The plan is to encourage people to preserve clothes and household furnishings and, to this end, to set up "make and mend'' groups. Where such a group has not been formed in a neighbourhood it is suggested that the local branch of the National Council of Women might undertake the organisation Groups could apply to local education authorities for classes, and should be ready to co-operate in order to bring up the numbers to make classes successful. Groups are advised to state in applications just what their needs are, mentioning whether they want lessons < making and re-making garments, choice and care of clothing, or getting the best from existing household furnishings.