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99
that he had a step parent, while 3 of the other children said they had. It is, therefore,
possible that re-marriage among the better placed adults is relatively more frequent,
and many of the children may not know that one or other of their parents is a steprelative,
and so the lower incidence of deaths in the better homes may be more
apparent than real. Three of the better housed children volunteered the information
that their parents were living apart, while none of the poorer children did so.
Ignorance of their parents' separation may also result in the child's belief that Mummy
or Daddy is dead. Four only of the better area fathers were said to have been
killed in the war.
It would be unjustifiable to draw any deductions from the above, but when
we come to the numbers of fathers said to be out of work, we find:—
Good Area. ' Demolition Area.
Boys Nil 10
Girls Nil 13
The working value of the fathers from the poor area is of a lower order. If
the numbers of fathers out of work be added to the number deceased, the total is 44,
leaving only 56 per cent. male wage earners in this series of 100 families from a
demolition area.

That is, 44 per cent. of the mothers in the demolition area are wage earners—
these two sets of figures show almost a reversal of the usual order of affairs. It is
obvious that if the mother must go out to work, the children cannot have the same
attention. The whole family suffers when the father is incapacitated for work either
by inherent or acquired disability or by disinclination or inability to get work. One
head teacher volunteered the information that when the mothers draw pensions for
husbands killed in the war their children were invariably better looked after than
those boys whose fathers were still alive. The male parents are the drones and the
female the workers.
The occupations of the fathers were also noted, and in the bad area only 2 were
shopkeepers and 4 were said to be skilled tradesmen. The remainder comprised
labourers, porters, hawkers, etc. The better placed men were shopkeepers, clerks,
shop hands, engineers from the neighbouring electrical works, policemen, postmen
and were generally in jobs requiring skill and training.

91 children from the bad area had lived in the same houses as long as they
remembered against 61 from the better homes. It would seem that the inhabitants
of the bad area had filtered down to bottom level and were unable or unwilling to
rise again, while the more robust and ambitious tend to move up the social ladder,
for these tenements are the most desirable working class dwellings in the neighbourhood.