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._
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF EXTRACT FROM LETTER 106.]