106. “I was locked up in a Morning.”
I have been a very healthy woman, and pregnancy never upset me very much, but I think if the Maternity Scheme had been in force when I was having children it would have been a great benefit to me. Being very poor, I had to get up on the third day, three or four times, not being able to pay for someone to look after me. My first baby I was locked up in a morning at half-past four, food put so that I could reach it until my husband came home at four in the afternoon, to help myself with everything with regard to the baby. My second was just the same. After that we removed a bit nearer the works, and I did better. We were a very comfortable lot of neighbours, and we always did for one another. I don’t say that it was not very hard, because it was, and a little money help would have been a great boon to some of us more than others. With regard to wages, it is rather a sore point. My husband has earned a very good wage nearly all our married life, but he is a born gambler. I never had £1 a week, and a great many times I had nothing, so that when my children began to work, it took years to pay for what they had to have to be brought up. I have had ten children; nine alive at the present time; six married; three have received the Maternity Benefit and have found it a great help, and feel that it is a credit to everyone who helped to bring so great a scheme about for the benefit of the working man’s wife.
Wife’s allowance less than £1; ten children, one still-birth.
Facsimile of Extract from Letter 106.