GIRL'S STRUGGLE

Marlborough Express, Volume LXVIII, Issue 148, 25 June 1934, Page 4

GIRL'S STRUGGLE

TO KEEP HER FAMILY. "Like a chapter from Job," was the comment of the; Magistrate at Willesden, London, when he refused to allow the Ibcal council to distrain on a family named Lever for rates. The- Magistrate' came to his decision after hearing of the: brave struggle of a girl of seventeen to keep the family. For seventeen years, it was stated, the family lived in one of the largest houses at Willesden and paid £80 a year in rates. The father then had fmancial misfortunes and was compelled to move to a small house. A few months later he died suddenly from heart failure, and the mother had a serious illness, leaving her an invalid. There were four children of school age and a daughter of seventeen who took charge of the family fortunes. All that she had on her father's death was the household furniture, and she moved this to Westcliff-on-Sea, where she had taken a house and started a boarding-house in order to keep her mother and brothers and sisters. She wrote to the Court offering to pay the rates, which amounted to £25, in August, by which time she hoped to have made good. Some idea of the family's changed fortune was given to a newspaper correspondent by the housekeeper, ari Irishwoman. "When the blow iell after Mr Lever's death last October," she said, "Mrs Lever was prostrate, but Miss Doris took charge. Her idea was to establish a boarding-house here, but, of course, the season ha® not yet started, and we are still at a loose end. "It seems a great shame. There are two sons, who used to be pupils at the Kilburn Grammar School. looking for work every day, and two younger daughters who were at private schools and are now at Hamleo Court Road Council School. "Miss Doris is very hopeful of success here. She is running the house-. hold and looking after the family accounts and doing it very well. These are changed days, but I am glad I did not leave the family when the embarrassing times came. It is going to be a struggle, but there is plenty of pluck in the family," A