Chapter: STURGE HOUSE, BOW ROAD



This branch of the Men's Social Work of the Salvation Army is a home
for poor and destitute boys. The house, which once belonged to the
late Dr. Barnardo, has been recently hired on a short lease. One of
the features of the Army work is the reclamation of lads, of whom
about 2,400 have passed through its hands in London during the course
of the last eight years.

Sturge House has been fitted up for this special purpose, and
accommodates about fifty boys. The Officer in charge informed me that
some boys apply to them for assistance when they are out of work,
while others come from bad homes, and yet others through the Shelters,
which pass on suitable lads. Each case is strictly investigated when
it arrives, with the result that about one-third of their number are
restored to their parents, from whom often enough they have run away,
sometimes upon the most flimsy pretexts.

Not unfrequently these boys are bad characters, who tell false tales
of their past. Thus, recently, two who arrived at the Headquarters at
Whitechapel, alleged that they were farm-labourers from Norfolk. As
they did not in the least look the part, inquiries were made, when it
was found that they had never been nearer to Norfolk than Hampstead,
where both of them had been concerned in the stealing of L10 from a
business firm. The matter was patched up with the intervention of the
Army, and the boys were restored to their parents.

Occasionally, too, lads are brought here by kind folk, who find them
starving. They are taken in, kept for a while, taught and fed, and
when their characters are re-established--for many of them have none
left--put out into the world. Some of them, indeed, work daily at
various employments in London, and pay 5s. a week for their board and
lodging at the Home. A good proportion of these lads also are sent to
the collieries in Wales, where, after a few years, they earn good
wages.

In these collieries a man and a boy generally work together. A while
ago such a man applied to the Army for a boy, and the applicant,
proving respectable, the boy was sent, and turned out extremely well.
In due course he became a collier himself, and, in his turn, sent for
a boy. So the thing spread, till up to the present time the Army has
supplied fifty or sixty lads to colliers in South Wales, all of whom
seem to be satisfactory and prosperous.

As the Manager explained, it is not difficult to place out a lad as
soon as his character can be more or less guaranteed. The difficulty
comes with a man who is middle-aged or old. He added that this Home
does not in any sense compete with those of Dr. Barnardo; in fact, in
certain ways they work hand in hand. The Barnardo Homes will not
receive lads who are over sixteen, whereas the Army takes them up to
eighteen. So it comes about that Barnardo's sometimes send on cases
which are over their age limit to Sturge House.

I saw the boys at their dinner, and although many of them had a bad
record, certainly they looked very respectable, and likely to make
good and useful men. The experience of the Army is that most of them
are quite capable of reformation, and that, when once their hearts
have been changed, they seldom fall back into the ways of dishonesty.

This Home, like all those managed by the Salvation Army, is spotlessly
clean, and the dormitories are very pleasant rooms. Also, there is a
garden, and in it I saw a number of pots of flowers, which had just
been sent as a present by a boy whom the Army helped three years ago,
and who is now, I understand, a gardener.

Sturge House struck me as a most useful Institution; and as there is
about it none of the depressing air of the adult Shelters, my visit
here was a pleasant change. The reclamation or the helping of a lad is
a very different business from that of restoring the adult or the old
man to a station in life which he seems to have lost for ever.

 Rivers is in a session with Prior. Prior tells the doctor in detail what it is like to attack from a trench. He talks about climbing up and walking slowly, in broad daylight, right toward the machine guns. He is emotionally detached from the story he is telling, describing it as both "ridiculous" and "sexy. Prior assumes that he and Rivers are on different sides and one of them has to win. That day, a man named Wilfred Owen, another patient in the hospital, comes to visit Sassoon and asks him to sign books for him. Sassoon happily agrees, and is surprised that Owen has brought five copies for him to sign. Owen is impressed and intimidated by Sassoon, a tall man, a published poet, and a soldier with a reputation for courage. Yet he finds they have a lot in common; they are both poets; they both oppose the war but do not consider themselves pacifists; and they both look at life reflectively. Sassoon offers Owen the invitation to bring his poems over anytime he would like someone to read them Sassoon goes out with Anderson to play golf. Anderson loses his temper after missing a shot and threatens to kill Sassoon with his club. Anderson is mortified at his behavior, but they both try to laugh it off. They talk about nothing but golf in an attempt to avoid any intimate discussion of the war. Anderson disagrees with Sassoon; though he knows the war is horrible, he believes that it must continue until the end. Prior goes to a sleazy pub in Edinburgh to get some food and beer. There he meets some girls who work in a munitions factory. He seems to "click" with one girl, named Sarah Lumb, and he takes her to a hotel to buy her some drinks. When they talk, he finds out that she had a boyfriend who was killed by English gas in the Battle of Loos. Sarah could not believe that he had died; she did not know what to do, so she left her family and moved to Edinburgh to work in a munitions factory. She makes plenty of money and she likes the work, though it means long hours. Sarah stays in a boarding house and is not allowed to bring men back home, so they go for a walk. Prior takes Sarah to a graveyard and they come very close to having sex among the gravestones, but she pushes him away at the last minute. Prior gives in and decides to walk her to her door. He kisses her goodnight and promises to see her again.

