Restoring Self-Respect
and Hope in Aberdare
.- A. GREAT deal has been said about the money sub-. -El- scribed so generously by readers of the Spectator for the 'stricken folk of Aberdare. Scarcely anything has been heard yet of the large quantities of clothing that have been passed through the office of this paper for the benefit of those who need warmth for their poor bodies and footwear that will carry them 'through the winter mire dry-shod. _ • . • .
Stacks of dresses, suits and overcoats, masses of under- clothing, mountains of - boots and shoes, have arrived in crates, in hampers, in Old trunks and portmanteaus, in brown paper parcels. At once they have been - sent 'on to the Aberdare Central Depot. Here they are'opened and sorted - by helpers -both enthusiastic and orderly. What specially delights them is the discovery: of- clothes -which are not old 'but new. For Aberdare, as Canon Lewis (the Vicar) tells me, " is a proud little place, and many of us are not fond of old clothes. Please don't blame us. Just as new clothes increase our self-respect, so old ones somehow detract `from it. Our greatest joy just now is that so many of the Spectator parcels contain new jerseys and sweaters, new -blankets, new shirts----and of these we could do with a lot more."
And then he told me of a man who had come to see him an evening or two before, a dark evening ; a man who had all his life worked hard at what the Canon called " one of the •minor professions," and had earned good wages, until the bottora fell out of the Coal Trade. Then with the rest he knew what it was to be hungry and have no food,; to-be -cold and possess _nothing but what he stood up in ; 'and, when that wore out, to be colder yet. On that dark evening he opened his coat, still kept well brushed in the hope of saving appearanees-k he had nothing on beneath it.
"He is.the kind of man," Canon Lewis went on, " who would rather be found dead' in a ditch than beg, but he had heard of the packages of clothes sent by the Spectator; and he wondered if . . . "
He still wears the same coat, but underneath he has a warm shirt and a warm jersey. • He doesn't shiver now, and he. is beginning to believe that after all something rimy turn up. The kindness of some friend at a distance has given him back both his self-respect and his capacity
for hoPe.' "
' It would amuse you as well as warm your hearts to spend a morning at the Central Depot. Here on these Shelves is 'what looks like a stage wardrobe. There is a scarlet hunting 'coat and cap,, there are dress suits, there are flowered silk dressing 'gown's, there are even Victorian' capes and crinolines. What; • you ask, can be the use of sending things like that ? A great deal of use when there are clever Sewing Groups' ready to cut them up and turn them into serviceable frocks amleoitts and 'trousers for small girls and boys. Nothing is wasted that cornea. to Aberdare: Of that you can be sure.'
yEvery single pair of boots is 'on somebody's feet
already: We had one pair that rather puzzled us," a helper tells me. " They were` those boots that ski-ers use in' Switzerland. - However, a man turned up just then who had a ehance Of restarting work but no boots fit to work in. He simply fell upon these. He said they -were the very thing ! That man 'went off happy : SO do the girls going into- service at .a distance and the boys from the Training Centre who have jobs to go to, for they are fitted out- with all they need. You know what a difference it makes to young people to feel that they need not be ashamed of their clothes, whether visible or not.
The parcels, therefore, have relieved much real suffering, brought thankfulness into many hearts. And the grocery tiekets -have Made a -difference to many half-starved little ones—to their more than half-starved F ;fathers and mothers as well._ And the toys which all the children in the schools got " from the readers of the Spectator," the dolls and the trumpets and the trains, have gladdened many a home. So far, so good ; but the future stretches dark and threatening still. How about the response to the suggestion that 1,500 families should be adopted by 1,500 subscribers who would Undertake to send five shillings a week until Easter, and so, while the winter months last, take the edge off Aberdare's distress ?
Well, we have had a large number of promises from kiridlY, generous people. There seems little doubt that the scheme will come into operation. And these are the sort of difficulties it will do something to smooth away. Here are -particulars of two families alteady.provided for by a reader who offered a weekly sum as soon as our first appeal had been published : Two breadwinners, father and grown-up son, un- employed for nearly two years. They get £2 9s. between them. That has to keep the mother 'whose mind has given' way under the strain of misery ; two sisters, 18 and 151,' who- kook after the home ; fOur children at 'school, and the two men: Three older girls arc in service and can just keep themselves. Nine people trying to live on 5s: 6d. a week each.' Suppose' we each ask Our- selves how far that would go towards our daily expenditure ?
' In the next family' seven people, father, Mother, and five children at school, are making shift to exist on a guinea a week. Just Bs. a week apiece ! The 'father's Unemploynient Insurance money comes to £1 14s. 'Out of that he has to pay 13s. a week rent. And if you could see the neatness Of that -home and the' mother's thrifty contriving; you would say she is a miraculous manager: - Those are two homes out of the fifteen hundred. Not specially hard cases. There are 1,498 just about' as bad. Those are the people for whom we ask your help. Let us announce next week that all the 1,500 have been
claimed. YOUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONER.
Previous page
