I suppose everyone has a bath now, but it wasn't so in the poorer
parts of London in those days. so one of my jobs was taking groups
of 20 children to the public (warm) baths in Walham Green, 5 groups
every day, 100 children in all. If there are any mothers reading this
perhaps they would like to imagine the fun I had giving 100 baths
a day!
I saw plenty of examples of head-lice, body-lice and even scabies
in those difficult days, although the rations we got were wholesome
enough and children were generally healthy and active. Parents had
to give permission for their children to be given a bath if we found
any children especially verminous and not all parents co-operated.
This meant I had to get a '149 Exclusion Notice' from the County to
have children de-loused and cleaned or they would be excluded from
school.
