But this war, which has temporarily dispersed many families, has dra many closer together. Blackout and restrictions on public entertainment keep father and mother and the older children more at home in the evenings. There are many fresides where the family groups itself as it has not been seen grouped since Victorian days.
It may not always make for domes-ie harmony, but in the long run it Britain, ambulance driving is more exclusively a woman's job than any other national service, except casualties caused by air raids were by women. But though there seer licences to draw upon, when it came to the point many of them were not available. Some had enlisted left the cities with their families.
Even now, with an enrolment of over 40,000 throughout the country, it Ig more dimeult to got volunteers to drive ambulances than, for any' other form of national service. Handling the ambulances is a heavy job needing tough muscles. It is a very: different proposition from driving a. light. car.
"The women enrolled for this work need good nerves. They will be the first out in the streets after a raid. They will often be the first on the spot to deal with casualties. They have got to have the kind of tem-Berament which could" slond any A Friend To Children Miss Maud T. Henderson, afte lanately known as "Grandm some of her 120 orphan charges at St.
Faith's settlement, Henderson, is shown surrounded by nated in a lane of Jessfield Road. Miss Henderson has conducted this enterprise since 1922. She came to China in 1903. staff are actually at work in the home Jof a managing director.
The ground floor of his house has been converted into offices. Typists are typing in the kitchen; the members of the family continue to live upstairs. The staff have their meals with the household.
At night, for a while, the executive loicials returned not to'their homes in an inner suburb but to the house of another director, not far away, where their wives had' been installed. The director's family had moved still farther out. I was informed that this experiment in ce-operative housekeeping has been abandoned; the wives have gone back to their inner-suburban homes; the house stands Perhaps the most curious large scale disturbance of family life that which has affected the Civil Serviee—a class most accustomed to a life of routine in the office and re~ gular hours and an. ordered soc! life, The compulsory separation of Civil Servants from their wives and children has, be it noted, "reversed the procedure which in other directions has been followed; it is the husbands who have been evacuated and the families have been ott behind.
The black-out must be held also to account for substantial changes home life and practice. Some of us may have begun to ponder over the mystery of what our ancestors did in the dark winter evenings; we may even learn to take a more indulgent view of some of their known habits— prolonged and solemn meal-times, musical evenings and ceremonious: soirees, to name only a few—which helped' to while away the hours before bed-time.
Darkness and the travel restrie~ tions of today amount to an almost total embargo on social life after dusk outside the home. Visiting of friends and relatives, or, rather, the exchange of visits, has been' drastically curtailed, Entertaining has almost ceased, The petrol ration and the week-end are Uevoled very largely to visits to the exiled family. We have become, "[solationists." but.part of what we have saved on hospitality we have may well be found to strengthen the! spirit of fatally life.
Therefore it may be recorded that! so far the Englishman's home remains; fundamentally unshaken; even its changed constitution shows It to be: rebared for any ordeal in this strug-ile for the liberties that such a home:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.