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23.
of course the most crowded session of the week, especially as the
concert hall of this building is one of the original old London Music
Halls:
During 1948, a voluntary committee (the Old People's Welfare
Committee) had obtained the use of a disused tavern in the High Street
at a nominal rental, and appealed to the Borough Council to cooperate
by repairing and adapting the premises for a pensioners' club.
This was accordingly done, and a full-time organiser appointed with,
later, part-time helpers to assist with meal-distribution, washing-up,
and so forth. This club is open from 10-30 a.m. to 5 p.m. from
Mondays to Fridays inclusive, and provides not only club rooms where
games, cinema shows, handicraft classes, old-time dancing classes,
wireless, billiards, daily and weekly newspapers and so on are to be
found, but also has a dining room to which Borough Council transport
carries hot mid-day meals from the Londoners' Meals Service at the
other end of the Borough, and in which are consumed the tea and cakes
made on the premises. Two-course hot lunches at 8d, tea and cakes
at 1d each, or sandwiches at similar low prices, provide sustenance
for 50 or more old people each day. The enthusiasm of the workers
here has led to their voluntarily holding an evening supper and concert
once a fortnight. This feature was so popular as to be a source of
worry on the Club premises, so that a large Church Hall is now hired
for these occasions.
A further full-time Club has just been opened in the remaining
quarter of the Borough after the Council had repaired a war-damaged
Vicarage. An innovation in this instance is that, when the old folk
have gone at 5 p.m., a local Youth Club takes over the top floor of
the premises, while the Civil Defence personnel have training and a
canteen in the rest of the house. In this way, it is hoped that
the additional expense of Ecclesiastical premises may be counterbalanced.
In the matter of running Clubs, the District Auditor pointed out
that certain expenditure (such as financing coach trips, seaside
Jaunts, etc.) could not be incurred by the Council, with the result
that a Joint Welfare Committee was formed, incorporating representatives
of the Borough Council and of the Old People's Welfare
Committee. This Committee took charge of the Council's Samaritan
Fund, and also of the sums collected by the voluntary committee, and
made itself responsible for all "illegal" expenditure on Clubs.