chamber pots and prickley heat powder for infants.
16H
7.
With this
help the Camp for the first year was decently, and colourfully, dressed (the shirts were locally made and designed for the African native), and much of the anxiety of the mothers with babies was relieved by the assistance given to them, especially.
One of the most serious clothes problem which recurred
during the whole period of internment was that of shoes. The
Camp terrain was heavy on footwear (the life of a rubber shoe was
about a fortnight and that of a locally made leather shoe about two months), and such shoes as most internees were able to bring
in were soon in a complete state of disrepair. Dr. Selwyn-Clarke
was able during the first months to send to the Comp many hundred
pairs of rubber and leather shoes and some repairing materials.
The International Red Cross continued this work until the price
of shoes and leather becane prohibitive. Such supplies of clothes
as were received from the first shipment from the British Red
Cross in November 1942, rather significantly did not include boots
or shoes, and with the second issue of clothes, this time from the American Red Cross a few months before the Colony was relieved, only thirty pairs of boots were available for the Stanley Camp. The problem to the International Welfare Committee of maintaining
two thousand, five hundred people in a properly shod condition became insoluble, and, for the last two years, a large part of the Camp were reduced to walking about bare-footed.
was
The clothes situation similarly became so difficult over
the last years that the Camp became extremely proficient in
making and remaking garments,
considered too poor to be used.
No piece of material was ever
Flour bags, saved from the days
when bread was supplied in the rations, old blankets and pieces of
curtain, were all collected, and the Committee with a group of
helpers, patched and remodelled garments and distributed them,
to those who were thought to be in need.
used for
The supply of strong beds was another difficult problem
at all times since canvas beds did not last very long when sitting on during the daytime. Canvas for repairing covers was urgently