Evening star., 1942-12-23
London Limehouse
Children Are Havinq
Merry Christmas
Youngsters Who Survived
Blitz Are Grateful
For Smallest Gift
By NAT A. BARROWS.


Foreign Correspondent OF The Star and
Chicago Daily News
LONDON, Dec. 23-Children in
London's fabulous LimehouSe district
can still laugh and sing this Christ
maSttme
Maybe that doesn't sound very i'm
portant back in the United States.
But these, you must understand. are
the children of LimehouSe-these
are the undersized, underprivileged
youngsters of one of the world most
crowded areas, where ugliness and
bleakness and drabness condition
every life. These are the children
who survived the London blitz on
the nearby Thames docks. children
who know the deepest, sadest i'm
pacts OF war as survivors of homes
broken by bombs out of London
darkness, or shattered by casualties
overseas They are small and old
and serious for their years, these
children of Limehouse. Yet they can
somehow still Taught and sing.
Your correspondent, listening to
them at one Of their Christmas
parties. with gifts improvised from
patched books, second hand toys and
salvseed odds and ends, feels closer
TO the war spirit-and the underlying
dogged spirit Of England-than ever
before.
Bleak and Dreary.
Certainly. no one will ever call
Limehouse place of gayness and
laughter-not at this fourth wartime
Christmas in England. Limehouse
is bleaker and drearier than ever, a
river-front area OF blitz craters and
wretched warrens, in which life is
even more OF q struggle than in
peacetime.
Yet, through their children. the
adults OF Limehouse-dockside long
Shoremen, munitions workers, wom-
en- bus conductors. lady plumbers
actually are finding something ap-
proximating a festive spirit this
Christmas.
They never had many extras In
Limehouse, few of the little luxuries
we Americans accept as part of our
inheritance Now Limehouse has
only the barest necessities. And no
more.
That IS why this Christmas partv
for the little old men and women
OF Limehouse. aged to IA. has been
Just about the biggest event for
many months. When you dom t have
very much out of life, you re grateful
for small things.
Sadie Dalton's second-h hand rag
doll. hanGed her as the prize in a
musical chairs contest, was the
nnest, loVeliest doll Sadie had ever
known. You see, this was the first
doll Sadie ever had all her own,
They held their party down A
murky, wretched street hardly bet
ter than wide alley in the shadow
OF power plant and near a brewery
Nearby were dreary little tenements
some laid open by Blitz. some
pathetically repaired. These were
nomes from which many of these
children came.
Real Christmas Tree.
somewhere, somehow Jerry Wright.
director OF this particular Limeho,,se
rest center and one time secretary
70 Ramsay Macdonald, had found
real Christmas tree. Somehow he
and his staff had contrived to fit I'm
olackout cloth into the Christmas
decorations. Somehow thev had
managed to bring touch of holiday
decoration into this combined school,
mousse and blitZ rest center.
every small child was given his
own gift, something to unwran
something to take home. It wasn't
much. maybe just little pennv pic
'ure BOOK or cheap beads but it was
Christmas present, perhaps the
only present some of those children
OF wartime Limehouse will have
Mr.. Wright and his staff duo
down into their own pockets to INV
those little presents and the roa.t
pork which the children we're fed
eariler The London County Coun-
Gil, which Is supervising the school
simply hasn't the funds for such
Things. '''i
Inc Older children. many of them
wearing clothes donated by America
, siter the olitz, competed for prizes
1ustly. Joyously and spontaneously
nsroSnip and privation and mem.
oIles OF bombs were forgotten for
tne moment under the wonderful
aoiiity OF children the world over
10 nnd enjoyment together-if siven
tne cnance. They sang. And whatp
Is no'llns less than Deep in the
heart OF Texas with stompines and
handclappings and then i've Co. @