WAR MEMORIALS
Sia,—Soon after the Great War, a movement was set on foot in Lancaster to found a War Memorial Village on a site near the L.M.S. Railway Station in this city. It was designed by the late Mr. T. H. Mawson and, today, contains sixty-seven cottages, all of them tenanted by disabled ex-service men and their families. Picturesquely laid out with a monu- mental memorial at its centre, it also contains a good-sized club house and a bowling-green. Thus the villagers live a communal life and have no difficulty in finding employment close to their homes, in the city, if they are capable of doing it. For some time past now, the village has been financially self-supporting, as the small rentals charged to the tenants, and Government subsidies, cover the expenses of upkeep and the salary of a -resident secretary, himself a veteran of the last war. Since • a portion of the site is still undeveloped, it is proposed to build a further thirty-three cottages to be occupied by men disabled in the present war.
Similar settlements have been established at Enham and Papworth, also at the Haig Homes at Morden ; but these seem to be the only other war memorials of this particular kind. Their success has been indis- putable, although, at the outset, there was some opposition. It was argued, for instance, that disabled men would object to segregation in surroundings which would always be reminding them of the horrors of war. Other critics who, a quarter of a century ago, considered that any future war was an impossibility, professed to see these villages becoming derelict. Experience, however, has clearly shown that all such objections were fallacious.
Surely, then, there is a good case for extending the number of these villages as soon as the opportunity offers. Meanwhile, any who are interested can always visit them and ascertain at first hand what the villagers themselves think of them. As a matter of fact, more than one civic body has sent an official deputation to Westfield, of which Lord Derby is a Patron, and which has had its own Council of Management
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