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20
During the period of the war the Volunteer Car Pool administered
and operated by the Women's Voluntary Service fulfilled
most admirably a great public need by transporting free of charge
sick persons to and from hospitals and other institutions for special
treatment. Having been closely associated with this aspect of
W.V.S. activity, I was much impressed by the prompt, courteous
and efficient manner in which they complied with all applications
and requests for such transport made by my Department. After
the disbandment of the W.V.S. Volunteer Car Pool at the end of
July, 1945, the number of applications received for the transport
of such cases showed the need for the provision of public facilities
for the transport of sitting cases. As it is uneconomic to use fully
equipped ambulances for patients who can be conveyed satisfactorily
in sitting cars, the purchase of a sitting case car has been sanctioned.

WATER SUPPLY.
The Leyton area is supplied by the mains of the Metropolitan
Water Board, whose system serves some seven million people with
an average daily supply of 300 million gallons. Five-sixths of
the supply is river water, which has to undergo most elaborate
purification to deal with the increasing amount of pollution to
which it is subjected. The remaining one-sixth, supplied from the
wells of the great chalk basin beneath London, is deteriorating
progressively due to increasing urbanisation; and it has to be
chlorinated. Continuous and intensive examination and analysis
of the water supply is carried out by the Director of Water Examination,
Metropolitan Water Board.
During the early days of the first London 'blitz' in September,
1940 one was appalled to see fractured water and sewage mains in
bomb craters, which became filled with a mixture of drinking water