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The Association do feel there is a great need for a social centre for the old men in this Borough
where they could meet together on their own. So far, the Association have not been able to find
suitable premises, but the problem is constantly before us.
During the year we have made fresh contact with the two Jewish Friendship Clubs which are doing
such good work.
Holidays.
This year the Association used the special annual grant for holidays made by the Borough Council
to arrange a week's holiday at Brighton for 89 old people and also to make a contribution to the
holiday fund of the Fourth Feathers Darby and Joan Club to enable them to send 29 old people to
Margate for a week.
The Barrow Hill Darby and Joan Club sent 16 of their members to Broadstairs. In addition, the
Association arranged individual holidays for four old people not suitable for inclusion in organised
parties. Each year we are asked for many more holidays than our funds will allow. Probably all
the 13,000 old people in this Borough would benefit from a change of air away from their domestic
routine, but we can only touch the fringe of their need. However, we are intensely grateful to the
Borough Council for even making our present efforts possible.
Emergency Fuel Service.
Two successive mild winters have resulted in a comparatively small demand for this service, but
we were none the less grateful to the St. Marylebone Rotary Club for their gift of £30 to be spread
over three winters for presents of coal. The donation had originally been meant to pay for our new
concrete coal bunker ; but the firm which supplied it were so much troubled at the six months' delay
in fulfilling our order that in the end they gave it to the Association free of charge. We have bought
new scales and the bunker is full.
Entertainments.
We were invited to co-operate in two new forms of amusement for our old people this year. The first
was the Inter-Borough Talents Competition for Elderly Persons organised by the Civic Recreation
Officers' Association. Our Borough Council contributed to the cost of hiring the St. Pancras Town Hall
in which the finals were held in June. They asked us to choose the St. Marylebone candidate. After
preliminary heats at the clubs the St. Marylebone finals were held at the Town Hall in May. The
judges selected a blind old lady aged 84, now a resident of Luxborough Lodge. Her recitation won her
a special prize in the finals but on the whole we decided that our entries were not up to the standard
of other Boroughs where there must be more retired music-hall artists than our researches have
discovered in St. Marylebone.
The second was Old People's Day at Lord's, which was such an outstanding success that we hope
it may become an annual event. Two members of Lords obtained the permission of the M.C.C. to
invite hundreds of old age pensioners from the Borough to tea on the two days of the annual cricket
match between the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers. The regimental bands played, the weather
was brilliant, and a delicious tea was provided in the Garden Court. We gladly helped by providing
an Hon. Sec. for the small organising Committee and by enlisting the W.V.S.
Visiting.
This has been our basic activity for nearly ten years, and each year we are more convinced of its
value. The number of the group reporting directly to Miss Sharp, the Woman Public Health Inspector,
remains at about twenty. A development which has given us great satisfaction is that of groups of
old people's visitors from local churches which appoint a Liaison Officer to attend our monthly Visitors'
Meetings. There are now three. All Souls, Langham Place, with St. Peters, Vere Street; the Hinde
Street Methodist Church ; and the Good Samaritan League of the City Temple from the Presbyterian
Church in George Street.
We are also linked with the housebound by our close liaison with the Home Helps Service of the
L.C.C., and by an increasing number of requests for friendly visitors made by the officers of the
National Assistance Board."
Diseased or Infirm Persons.
Section 47 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, as amended by the National Assistance (Amendment)
Act, 1951, empowers the Council to apply to the Courts for Orders for the removal to a hospital or
institution, for the purposes of securing the necessary care and attention, of persons who—
(a) are suffering from grave chronic disease or, being aged, infirm or physically incapacitated, are
living in insanitary conditions, and,
(b) are unable to devote to themselves, and are not receiving from other persons, proper care and
attention.