The Shabby Death of 'Assistance' SIR,—I read with great interest
'A Correspondent's' article last week. I wonder what happened to the Assistance Board official that gave a couple £31 per week for lodgings. I have lost four months' work this year through illness. I do not receive National Insur- ance or sickness benefit as I am not entitled to it, and I might add I am a very proud and independent person. The Assistance Board offered me 2s. per week. I have never felt so disgusted or degraded in my life. I naturally told them I had not got the courage to go to the Post Office to get it and returned the book. I am a war widow and deeply ashamed that my husband gave his life for this country. He was much too young and too fine a man to have done this. I should like to see a little more truth written about the poverty in this country. I know of one old age pensioner who has had to sell her electric fire because sbe cannot pay the bill. She is seventy- eight. I should imagine there will be a lot more deaths this year through cold and malnutrition. Why not start an Oxfam for the poverty-stricken people in England? Charity starts at home. Changing the name does not matter a thing. I would much rather starve than ever ask for help again. The whole system should be looked into as there arc some people living very well on it and people that are really in need get nothing. 1 might add that I have not got a penny in savings. It seems to me that people in this country are afraid to write about the truth and that pen- sioners should be seen and not heard. Miss Herbison, I should imagine, is living in the lap of luxury as are all the Government. What could they possibly know of a pensioner's poverty-stricken life and now all the cost of living is going up and up it is going to be just that bit more poverty-stricken.
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