On This Day, 5 October 1917

Birmingham Mail

Friday 5 October 1917

OUR WOMAN ARMY

HOW BIRMINGHAM CAN HELP TO PROVIDE RECREATION HUTS.

This week a special appeal is being made in Birmingham to assist the national movement promoted by the Y.W.C.A. to provide recreation huts for the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, which is rendering such valuable help to our Expeditionary Force in France. Everyone knows the incalculable benefit which has attended the opening of the Y.M.C.A. huts in the various theatres of war and military camps at home, and the Y.W.C.A. is now setting out to provide similar accommodation and help for the large numbers of women connected with the units of the W.A.A.C. Such accommodation is most urgently needed both here and abroad. In France the need is especially imperative. There the Y.W.C.A. have 20 club-houses, huts, and annexes now in process of construction, besides six already completed.

Everything in the country is necessarily very expensive. Coal is between £10 and £12 per ton. Food is £3 per week per head. It costs something like £800 to establish a hut, and Birmingham is asked to make a liberal effort to financially assist the movement. The appeal will be accentuated by a street collection tomorrow—Women’s Day—and this will afford the public good opportunity of marking their appreciation of the laudable object of the Y.W.C.A. The collection is being organised by the Street Collection Committee. In the morning the Lady Mayoress is making visits to the principal stands and depots, and the afternoon the Countess Dowager of Bradford will make a similar tour with Mr. George Cadbury, President of the Midland Division the Y.W.C.A.