The Likes of Us
- Author:
Holmes. Frederick
Muller, Ltd. 7s. 6d.
The fact that a second impression of this book has followed hard on the heels of the first, is evidence of the welcome that has been given to it, and to that welcome we would add our own. No one responsible for Children’s Homes, or employed in them, should be without the book for it contains an answer to the question which the writer?an ex-Barnardo child brought up in the Barkingside Village Home?suggests should have been asked of the people primarily concerned when the Curtis Committee was drawing widespread attention to the whole matter: “What do you really think? What are your views ? “
In the book a vivid picture is presented of the life at Barkingside?of its joys and sorrows, its opportunities and limitations, its hopes arid fears, its high lights and its daily routine. Perhaps the outstanding fact disclosed is the degree to which the particular foster-mother concerned succeeded in making for her adopted family a real home atmosphere, so that the term ” Mother ” was one that meant something precious to the child using it. At the same time, the ecstatic discovery that the new Governors of the Village actually were interested in older girls, reveals a wistful longing for that membership of a natural family group from the loving security of which a child brought up even in the most ideal ” Home ” must inevitably be deprived.
Two further examples may be given of ways in which these children reacted towards particular incidents.
At Christmas it used to be the custom for ” Mother ” to distribute from a large sack parcels addressed to individual recipients which had arrived by post, and afterwards anyone not fortunate enough to receive such a parcel was invited to have the first choice from a second sack filled with toys deposited at each cottage by Father Christmas. The child without a personal parcel did not feel hurt because she knew that to her would be given this privilege of the first choice. Later, however, a well-meaning staff ” put in ” a parcel for everyone so left out, with an enclosed greeting card. The author’s comment on this is illuminating. ” It did nothing,” she writes, ” to dispel that faint chill of loneliness
” If a parcel v^as not actually there, one could airily say: ‘ Expect it will come laterknowing perfectly well it couldn’t?but the ‘ made-up ‘ parcel deprived us of this fierce wall of pretence and left us quite defenceless.”
The second example will be of special interest to readers concerned with the welfare of mental defectives. As part of the general re-organization of the village consequent on the arrival of new Governors (Miss MacNaughten and Miss Picton Turberville), children who were feeble-minded (familiarly known as ” potties “) were taken out of the Cottage Homes and housed in a separate building. Popular comment on this reform ran as follows :
” At first we were indignant, surely they were better with us, but “Mother” explained that they needed special ‘ modern ‘ care… . We felt they had been our ‘ special care ‘, and never did I think this putting them together was a good idea. They seemed to us to grow into ‘ naughty girls’ … Maudie summed up the situation well when she said ‘ All them potties together, ours and all, oh lor !’ Mother’s ‘ Hush, Maudie ‘ was only mechanical.”
These two examples will serve to show the type of information the book contains and the author’s gift as a narrator. There is not a dull section in its 192 pages, and all who love children, and specially those whose business it is to promote their mental health and happiness, will feel grateful for its publication. A.L.H.
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