"20 Berkeley Street, London, 11'.

24th January, 1920.

MY DEAR STRACHEY.—In reply to your kind letter of 12th January, I am asked by the V,A.D Committee to say that we should be most grateful if you would put an appeal in your paper for a Convalescent Home for V.A.D members. The house which we have had for the last two years has to be given up in March. We want a house which will give us twenty beds, with a garden for the convalescents to sit out in, within reasonable distance of London, for one year. Perhaps one of your readers has such a house that could either be lent or let to us at a low rent. We have enough beds to supplement the furniture of such a. house.

There are still about 4,000 V.A.D.'s serving with the Military Authorities. Several hundreds of these will be demobilized at the end of April Many of them are quite broken down when their contracts . end, and they need rest, if not medical treatment. The Commandant, Matron, and two members of our staff at the Convalescent Home give their services free ; but in spite of this the Home costs us some £225 a month. The house will be wanted, if possible, at the beginning of March.— It will be seen from the above that the Central Joint V.A.D. Committee has determined, and wisely determined, to continue, at any rate for another year, the Convalescent Home which throughout the war has been a place' of rest and recovery for nurses who have either broken down through overwork, or through illness which has come to them in the course of their work for the wounded. The lease of Hartsleap, where the V.A.D. Convalescent Home has been situated, has now come to an end ; and the need of the hour is to find a suitable house within two hours or so of London where the good work done at Hartsleap can be continued.

Is there, we wonder, any reader of the Spectator who possesses a furnished country house with some twenty bedrooms and with pleasant grounds—any ordinary country house in sanitary condition would be suitable— who would lend it as a Convalescent Home, either gratuitously, or for a payment which would cover upkeep, or, again, for a 'small. rent I. We admit that we are asking for what is in fact a pecuniary contribution from some member of a class which has already made very great pecuniary sacrifices, both personal and material, in the matter of the Red Cross, and that it may well seem unreasonable when the war is over to seek further help from the owners of country houses—a body of people Which, save in rare instances, is already well-nigh overwhelmed by taxes and rates. At the same time we feel that our appeal is worth making, for there may be owners who through sonic exceptional circumstances are not able to occupy their country houses at present, and who, though they would not care to let in the ordinary way, would be willing to lend for a public object as good as the one of which we write. Should any person so situated read these pages and feel inclined to offer help in kind, will he or she be so good as to communicate direct with "The Hon. Sir Arthur Stanley, G.B.E., The Central Joint V.A.D. Committee, 20 Berkeley Street, London, W. 1" ?

Sir Arthur Stanley in his letter shows how great is the need for a home of rest and recovery for nursing V.A.D.'s. The present writer desires to add something from his own knowledge.

It is notorious that members of the medical profession are as careless of their oyrn health, of the need for rest and the avoidance of overstrain, as they are anxious and careful in regard to the health of their patients. The same thing may be said of nurses. It has become a commonplace that the nurse has often more need of nursing than those she cares for. To those who owe a debt of gratitude to the nulling profession, and that must mean now some half the nation, an appeal for provision for nursing the nurses must come with exceptional force. How much the strain of nursing calls for rest and quiet under the best conditions--conditions which often cannot be found in Pie nurse's own home, if she has one—is well illustrated in the following extract from a letter written by a V.A.D. nurse,. at this moment the occupant of a bed at Hartsleap. The nurse in question is recovering from a complete breakdown from overwork in a Naval Hospital :— " What happy memories Hartsleap awakens, reminding one of how when, a worn-out V.A.D. almost too tired to care what happened, one found oneself in a quiet, restful country house, welcomed, and with every care and attention awaiting each weary traveller ; then comas bed and the magic words Breakfast hi bed in the morning '—and I believe that only V.A.D.'s realize fully the true joys of such luxury—after which feast comes the visit of Matron, at whose wise discretion we rise or not. If the former, we all enjoy walks in the lovely country surrounding us ; and if our fate is to remain in bed all day, we are visited and cheered by visits from the much-loved Commandant, to whose capable management from the beginning Hartsleap owes its happy life. Then for those patients well enough to rise, but unable to walk, comes the occasional joy of a ride in the ear whenever it is out on duty bound. At 1 p.m. dinner is served, with individual attention given to diet, after which, for most patients, is enforced an afternoon rest until an informal, and often noisy, tea. Most of us then are ready for music, Bridge, games, and the greatly appreciated lectures by lecturers from the Victoria League. The toy-making industry must not be omitted, which keeps us all busy on wet days. Supper at 7.30, followed by bed and the last visit from Matron. So days pass happily until —mentally and physically refreshed and cured—one departs with deep gratitude and many regrets, and above all a vague wonderment as to our fate had there been no Hartsleap.

Surely there could be no better work than to help an institution like Hartsleap.

We may supplement the nurse's letter by the care- fully considered observations of a member of the British Red Cross Society, who has had special facilities for seeing at first hand what is being done at Hartsleap :— " The continuance of such an institution is of urgent necessity for the next few years, and if later it could be placed on a per- manent basis the British Red Cross Society would nobly and generously play their part in discharging the debt incurred by the nation towards its voluntary women workers. Not only would such a Home be a fitting memorial to the V.A.D.'s who have laid down their lives for their country—a tribute to our own Glorious Dead '—but it would be Hope and Life itself to the women broken in the war, those whose health was unable to withstand the strain of the years of fighting. To give one instance where I could give a dozen. There is a girl at Hartsleap. now, suffering from having strained her heart in heavy nursing work, who has an invalid mother supported by one daughter, who is a dressmaker in London. The thought of the future preys on this girl's mind ; she is often very ill and requires great care. In time she will recover with good food and nursing ; but should Hartsleap close she is without resource, as she was a voluntary worker in an Auxiliary Hospital. The present conditions of many of our sick V.A.D.'s are heartbreaking. They have lost fathers, brothers, and fiances ; the mother has perforce given up the home, and the girl, who before the war lived a life of comfort, is faced with broken health and absolute destitution. There were lately four patients, two of them ladies, who not one of them had more than thirty shillings in the world.

A Convalescent Home to do its work thoroughly should include training on the lines of the Village Centres for disabled men, and therefore should, if possible, be established near some technical institute whence teachers could be obtained. A garden and facili- ties for keeping pigs, poultry, rabbits, and goats would pay its way if patients, for whom fresh air was ordered, were trained as garden girls, &c., and the toy industry so successfully started by the present Matron could be developed, and teachers obtained for other suitable training,s, so that patients would be discharged with some chance of earning their bread. The teaching of housewifery, needlework, and cooking should likewise be systematized.

With regard to finance, I have some experience in the working of County Branches, and I think those counties which supported County Huts in the British Red Cross Hospital at Netley would gladly contribute to the upkeep of one or two beds. A paying ward would also be a useful and necessary feature, as in times of peace there are many V.A.D.'s who would wish to contribute towards their own support when ordered rest and change, but who cannot afford the money to go to an ordinary /cursing Home. The universal rise of wages has abolished the servant in many cases ; and if a girl doing peace work for the British Red Cross Society needs a period of rest she cannot have it, for, as they themselves put it, 'I cannot see Mother carrying up my trays.' Hospital work for V.A.D.'s is not yet over, and work for the disabled men is only just beginning. This work—called 'clinics' in London and curative posts in my own county- tis increasing as the men realize the standard of treatment under the Red Cross. The doctors become anxious to extend such benefits to their civilian patients, and thus these institutions become the nucleus where the work of the Red Cross under the Ministry of Pensions should smoothly slide into work under the new Ministry of Hlealth, and the high ideal of Sir Arthur Stanley of voluntary work under peace conditions will have rum foundations laid for its 'future realization. But the voluntary worker must be relieved of part of the strain. A knowledge that the British Red Cross Society has generously provided that she herself will be given rest and cure -will help her to endure and to feel that the Caritas ' of our motto is

recognized as an obligation in the days of peace as well as during the clash of arms."

There is yet another matter to be considered in regard to Hartsleap, one which touches a point already raised in the Spectator. Our readers may remember that in writing on the Red Cross Woman we dwelt very strongly upon the need for making the V.A.D. organization continue to do in peace what they did so ably in war—i.e., carry out the work of alleviating human suffering. In order that this work should be well maintained, we urged that everything that was possible should be done to build up a strong sense of esprit de corps and of membership of a powerful Order under the sign of the Red Cross—a Society which should consider one of its prime duties the care, he protection, and the welfare of its members.

Here are some specific comments on this point made by one who is intimately acquainted with the work of the V.A.D.'s :— "I believe that the possession of a Convalescent Home or Hospital must be of great value to the British Red Cross Society, especially when the Society is considered from the point of view of the new departure so ably put forth by Sir Arthur Stanley in his recent letter to the Times. The reasons for this belief can be shortly expressed :— ( 1) A Convalescent Home will help to build up the idea that the British Red Cross Society is not merely a kind of Decentralized Register of V.A.D.'s or a female 'Inscription Militaire,' but an order or body which has a definite duty and obligation of looking after the welfare of its members, helping them in trouble, and keeping them in possession of that bodily health without which a nurse is useless, or only able to use half her nursing power. In this respect the Convalescent Home would help to keep up the splendid tradition of care, kindness, welfare. and esprit de corps with which Lady Ampthill and her able colleagues have managed to inspire the women's side of the British Red Cross. The Convalescent Home is an outward and visible sign that the Society does care what becomes of its members.

(2) The existence of a Convalescent Home, in which minor hospital treatment can be provided, will be of great use and importance for emergency cases' during the next two years- i.e., the transitional period during which there will be still a good deal of war-induced illness.

(3) A Convalescent Home should prove of very great use as a training ground for V.A.D.'s in which the British Red Cross can provide for themselves a place where the elements of nursing can be taught and the rudiments of hospital routine learned."

• To sum up, if the Red Cross is to carry out the work in peace which has been foreshadowed by Sir Arthur Stanley, the V.A.D. members have an arduous and a permanent task before them. In order that they may accomplish that task in the best way, and without sacrifices which because preventable no one has a right to demand from them, the existence of a Convalescent Home of their own is, in our opinion, essential to the V.A.D. organization. It is for this reason that we have ventured to ask whether there is any reader of the Spectator who may be in a position—of the willingness of our readers we have no doubt • —to help in the provision of a Convalescent Home. In any case, "In Peace as in War Love and Care "— " In Pace ut in Armis Caritas "—must be the post-bellum motto of the V.A.D. organization. We must never allow it to mean in practice " Help for all but the helpers."