THE CHINA MAIL, JUNE 24, 1941.
ARMY
ENLISTS
WOMEN'S WORK
Must Agree To Ba
Mobile
As one of the many women who registered for war factory work follow- ing Mr. Ernest Bevin's call for 100,000 volunteers within the next fortnight, I found the employment
10 DIE IN BOMBED HE IS
A.F.S. POST
A.F.S. stations ånd A.R.P. posts were wreck- ed during a raid on | London, and a number of the personnel were buried in the debris.
A school used as an R.A.F. station was split in half by a heavy bomb.
Already six firémen, telephonista and two
exchange I visited ready EVEN
to deal with a rush of ap-
plicants, writes a corres- BABIES
pondent.
the Although
Minister of Labour's appeal was not expected by Employment Exchange officials, registration went on smoothly.
The first question asked me at a City area exchange was, "Are you prepared to leave London?" It might be possible, the woman officer explained, for me to be
trained in London, but not to work there.
"We want you to be willing to go to any district where you are needed," she said. "The Govern~ ment will look after any depend- ants and you will get allowances. But we want you to be mobile."
Registration was neither difficult nor formidable. At the exchange in Smithfield I found a separate department for national service applicants.
Leaflet Information
When one asks to register, 21 leaflet is handed over. It was pre- pared a few months ago when Miss Caroline Haslett, Adviser on
RATIONED
two
young
messenger boys have been, ex- tricated -dead,
One of the dead telephonists, Mrs. Peters, thirty-nine, had been working for the A.F.S. since her three children were evacuated.
The other, Miss Hilda Dupree, twenty-one, was to be married to a fireman in a fortnight.
Some of the dead had been sont from another London dia- trict to stand by. There were no firos in their own area. While about thirty A.R.P. wardens were awaiting a call to action, their post received a direct hit from a bomb. A number of them, including one woman, were killed.
After being buried for five hours, three women were rescued and rushed to hospital.
Two of
the
Hospital Rescues
women wardens So many childless rescued are Miss Jean Drummond
and Miss Frances Drummond. women, mostly wives of Until war broke out they and Servicemen, want to adopt their sister Victoria ran a club for girls in a poor district of London. babies that societies in Victoria, who is a god-daughter of of England Queen Victoria, is a marine en- the North have had to set up wait-gineer, and helped in the Dunkirk ing lists.
Mr. J. Wilson, hon. secretary Fulfood, of the Babies' Home, Preston, Lanes --- believed to be the oldest adoption society in the country-told the "Daily Mirror":
"Most of the people who come to me are officers' wives who, living alone, want companionship.
"Since Christmas i have been able to find a home for a child the every two weeks, on average.
"Most of the requests are from Women's Training, launched, on people well endowed with this -the wireless, a scheme for train-world's goods, and if I were able ing women for engineering in to place babies their future would munitions works. It gives seven be assured." trades in which women can train, and lists 30 Government training centres.
It also gets out the allowances pald, and gives general inform- ation for those who may have to train away from home. Training courses, which vary from three to five months, free, and board and lodging allow- Applicants can ances are paid. ask for training within daily tra- velling distance from their homes and suggest an area in which they
are
15,
DIED
TO DO HIS BIT
HIS DO
evacuation.
Mothers and day-old were among those
bables
carried