LADY PEARSON

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12619, 2 December 1926, Page 5

LADY PEARSON

Lady (Arthur) Pearson, widow of Sir Arthur rearson, the well-known newspaper proprietor and founder of St. Dunstan’s, will be in New Zealand early in the coming year, but her stay there will not be long (says a London correspondent). She has booked hex* passage by the Cunard liner Franconia, which is announced to “cruise round the world through Southern Seas.” The passengers from Jlngland for this luxury tour will Leave Bristol on New Year's Day, and will join the Franconia at Kingston (Jamaica). Auckland should bo reached about February 18th. Lady Pearson’s great forte may, peihaps, be said to be her natural gift for organising, and this was during the war in several important directions. For- instance, she organised the Queen's-Work for Women Fund, and she trained a number of blind people—soldiers and civilians—musically gifted, to give concerts all over the country. The financial results of these averaged .£25,000 per year. In both these important wartime enterprises she, of course, had a large and efficient band of helpers. But it is perhaps as president of St. Dunstan's that her name is best known to the world at large. This is now a vast organisation, and though there may not be a great many more fresh cases of blindness that can be directly attributed to the effects of the war, there will always be the aftercare interest and work on behalf of the St. Dun6taners who are earning their livelihood all over the world. Indeed, when th© last of the war-blind* ed men lias been trained and settled, St. Dunstan’s is still pledged to a lifelong responsibility for them all. That is the maintenance of the widespread AfterCare Organisation, the work of which commences with the completion of tho training of the blinded man, and ends only with his death. This After-Care Organisation, which is essentially a costly one to maintain, has but one aim and object in view—to smooth the way, as far as is humanly possible, for every warblinded man from tho moment he leaves St Dunstan's. However fine tho spirit and however brave the outlook the warblinded man learnß in the environment of St. Dunstan'6, it is inevitable that, left to fend for himself in the thousand-and-one difficulties and problems which must beset him, a great deal of the splendid work accomplished would be gravely prejudiced. A helping here, a little service there, and always the opportunity to . submit to the After-Care Department any difficulties-that crop up, means the whole difference between continued success and contented citizenship, and the growing despondency of failure. All of these men living in the Dominions it will be Lady Pearson s endeavour to sc© during the coming tour.