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The Women's Voluntary Services continued to deliver meals to the housebound on five days a week,
and over 5,000 meals, obtained from the London County Council restaurant in Bryanston Square,
were distributed during the year. The Association expressed thanks to the Public Health Department
for arranging an overhaul of the delivery van and for lending a vehicle while their own was out of
commission on several occasions. The "meals on wheels" and home helps services together make,
perhaps, the most important contribution to domiciliary welfare work for old people, the ultimate
aim of which is to enable them to live in their own homes as long as possible.
The W.V.S. Luncheon Club and the Cookshop of the St. Marylebone Housing Association and
Trust continued to function, the food for the former being delivered to the club premises from the
London County Council restaurant by the Association's van, thus bringing the total number of meals
transported annually to 10,000.
The seven "Darby and Joan" Clubs held weekly meetings and arranged summer outings and
Christmas parties. Three of the clubs are organised by the W.V.S., one by the Women's Committee
of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, one by the Inner Wheel of St. Marylebone Rotary, one by the
Fourth Feathers Club, and one by a member of the League for the Hard of Hearing.
The friendly unofficial visiting of lonely old people, which was the first work undertaken by the
Association, remains the most important. Though visiting is carried out by officers of many official
bodies, notably the National Assistance Board, the Borough Public Health and Housing Departments,
and by district nurses, home helps, the clergy and church workers of all denominations, as well as
by club organisers when their members are ill or in hospital, there are still many old people with no
"official" needs, and it is they whom the Association's small band of fifteen visitors try to help.
All the various visiting organisations were represented on the Association's Executive Committee,
where their combined knowledge and experience is available for the benefit of all. There is also a
monthly visitors' meeting, which is attended by a member of the Executive Committee who is the
Association's liaison officer with the parish visitors of a group of churches in the Borough. Through
its visiting service the Association kept in touch with nearly a thousand old age pensioners, and it
has issued an earnest appeal to anyone who can spare a few hours a month to help in this work, upon
which all other activities are based.
Turning to new services inaugurated by the Association during 1951, arrangements were made to
deliver small quantities of coal and wood blocks to old people in their homes to tide them over an
emergency or until their priority permits for fuel were honoured. In the early part of 1951 there
were many calls on the service but with milder weather prevailing at the close of the year only a small
number of deliveries were necessary.
A foot clinic for old people, started in June, 1951, proved to be an outstanding success. The
equipment was purchased out of a grant from the Sunday Cinematograph Entertainments Fund of
the London County Council, and the clinic is administered by the local branch of the British Red
Cross Society and staffed by a qualified chiropodist and two students from the School of Chiropody
at Chelsea Polytechnic. Sessions were held weekly in the Town Hall Extension, and 240 patients
received treatment during the first six months.
A home chiropody service, closely associated with the clinic, provided treatment for 61 patients,
visits at the outset being made once a month by the chiropodist and later fortnightly owing to the
increased demand.
The Association renders incidental help in many ways. It has a small relief fund for emergencies;
it assisted a few old people with holidays; obtained the loan of wireless sets for the housebound;
and through a local press appeal secured a stock of sheets for the use of the aged.
Certain members of the Association's Executive Committee, including the Chairman and Hon.
Secretary, continued to serve on the Committee of the specially-formed housing society (St.
Marylebone Old People's Homes, Ltd.) which is engaged in establishing in St. John's Wood a "care
and attention" home for St. Marylebone's old people. With the concurrence of the Council, the
Medical Officer of Health accepted an invitation by this organisation to become Honorary Medical
Officer of the home, which, despite difficulties and delays, it is hoped to open early in 1952.
The Hon. Secretary of the St. Marylebone Old People's Welfare Association is Miss M. K. C.
Macintosh, Room 103, Town Hall, St. Marylebone, W.l.
SECTION C.—SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Sanitary Inspection.—The number of complaints received (excluding those relating to rat and mouse
infestations) was 1,428. Details of the various nuisances detected and remedied, to the total number
of 2,275, are set out in Table 3. In 802 cases a preliminary (intimation) notice was issued, and in