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As I said last year, the dental work is bringing more and more toddlers under review than
anything else. Honestly, we have not time to deal with many toddlers. There are many things
I want, and want badly, for the mothers and children at the Clinics. I want to see the toddlers more
often, I want definite instruction, I want organized cookery demonstrations. As I happen to be
personally a practical cook, I find that I have to give the cookery lessons to the individual mother
when I find she is up against a difficulty with the toddler's food, but it ought not to be my job.
There is one thing that keeps one's nose on the grindstone despite all the discomforts and disappointments
in connection with the work, and that is, the gratitude of some of the parents for what
one is able to do for the welfare of their little ones. For instance, at a dance given in aid of a Boys'
Club, I was stopped by one of the Officials in connection with the Boys' movement, and asked if I
were Dr. Nash. I said "yes." He said, "May I speak to you afterwards? " and after one of the
dances when I was free I approached the individual in question, who greeted me with the astounding
remark—" May I shake you by the hand, Sir." I asked "Why?" to which he replied, "I think we
have the finest little girl in Hounslow. My name is so-and-so, and you will remember what an awful
trouble she was to bring up. I feel I should like to thank you and shake you by the hand for all
you have done." It is such things which lighten the drudgery, which are a counterblast to the fretful
mother with an only child who worries over every little thing, and who at the end of it has little
gratitude and only criticism if she does not get all she wants. As I said, it is such things which make
one keep on, feeling that at least one has done something for some parent which they appreciate.
The work in the Clinics is made harassing by recurrent appeals from the mothers to me as
Health Officer, to know if I can do something towards helping them get a Council House. They tell
me the circumstances, and I, who am the duly appointed Health Officer of the district, can only say
that it is no concern of mine, that I have nothing to do with it. It is true that when the Borough
was formed in November there was a definite effort on the part of a section of the Council to place
the housing under the aegis of the Public Health Committee on the grounds that there was only one
reason why these people are being re-housed, and why the Local Authority is spending money on
housing to the extent that it is, and that is "Health."
By the narrowest of margins the status quo ante survived, and all I can say in response to the
harrowing tale, is that I have nothing to do with it.
I want to emphasize again what I said last year with regard to the nutritional needs of some
these people; largely it is the effect of ignorance. As I said last year, their main difficulty is a carbo
hydrate surfeit, and an insufficiency of first class protein. First class protein was never so cheap
as it is at the present time, but it is the ignorance of how to buy it and how to use it, which dominates
the situation.
One of the greatest difficulties in feeding some of these folk is the prejudice that exists. The
number that will not eat fat is enormous. One has only to talk to any cookery teacher in the cookery
centre to find how this prejudice, mainly due to ignorance, dominates the diets of the poorer people.

It will be seen that the attendances have more than doubled in the last six years.
The average attendances per session during the year 1932 were as follows:—
At Douglas Road Centre 93.1
At Clipstone House, Bath Road, Centre (10 Sessions only) 57.0
At Isleworth Centre 66.9
At Heston Centre 67.3
Approximately 71 per cent. of the children born in the district attend at one of the Infant
Welfare Centres before before they are a year old, an increase of 2 per cent. over last year's figure.
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