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Life and The Featherbrained Flapper.

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Amphion (U3338999) on Tuesday, 30th March 2010

  In an interview with the 'Empire News' on Sunday, 24th March 1918, Miss E. Wright, matron of St. Margarets Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ For Friendless Women, Blackpool, discusses the "flapper" problem and the approaching season.
  
  "Let me make it clear that it is not the soldier who is to blame for the number of girls led astray, as so many people are only too ready to conclude.
  Girls cannot have what they call a good time ob a soldiers pay; good times come from those with means.
  I have had a case of some girls brought here from a munition centre by men who could afford the luxury of a motor car.
  When the pleasures of the girls' company waned- as they rapidly do in a place like Blackpool- they are left stranded.
  Fortunately, they got into communication with us; we put them up, wired to their employer, and he sent a car for them.
  Those girls are to-day the wiser for their experience, and by timely handling have been saved from another occupation.
  Young girls come to the seaside for a holiday, and having tasted the sweets of the idle life for a week do not relish work when they return to it.
  Eventually they decide to come to the seaside for work, believing that if they get the evenings free there will be no limit to their fun.
  They arrive here, and if they find employment in the season, they quickly realise that Blackpool for holiday is not the same for work. They do not get the time off they dreamt of, and no employer could reasonably give it to them; they see hundreds going out daily pleasure bent (only on holiday), and being rather of the irresponsible type, they quickly fall to temptation.
  Then there is the genuine girl, who becomes stranded, and this is the type we like to assist. A number of girls decide to spend a day in Blackpool. They club together, and their money is pooled into one common fund, so that the expense will be equal. One girl is appointed chancelloress of the exchequer, and does all the paying. One recent instance we had of a jaunt like this. During their experience of the fun on the fairground, the treasurer of the party managed to lose her purse containing the return halves and all their wealth. Someone wisely put them into communication with us, and we paid there fares home. This expenditure the girls gratefully and promptly returned.
  What might have happened but for their approaching us cannot be said, for all girls are not so morally strong, and the streets offer cold and uninviting accomodation at nights, whilst there are always men with full purses ready.
  The tendancy among the girls we handle to-day is to shun work. It is a very hard thing to say, but it iss o, nethertheless. I can place any number of girls in service if I can get them, but those we get are either not inclined to do the work or are not of the type we could place safely in a household containing a family.
  I have no use for the adoption of girls, because I believe that in the majority of cases it leads to a bondage of cheep domestic service. One is told the girl will be treated as one of the family, but more often than not she is a drudge working for a pittance in the way of spending money which the average domestic would scorn, and called upon to do all and any kind of duties by male members of the family, and then turned adrift.
  The public houses are not so great a danger to the 'flapper' as the elegant hotel. The former do not provide living or sleeping accomodation, and their is not attached to lounging in the sumptuous halls of the gilded caravanserai the same stigma as drinking in a public house.
  To sip coffee and liqueurs and smoke cigarettes appeals to the mind of the 'featherbrained flapper' the very essence of society life. She is introduced to drinks with names foreign to her, and rather than show her ignorance of such expensive concoctions she will partake of them as though they were part of her daily living. The thought of intoxication never crosses her immature mind
  The holiday season commences shortly, and a word of warning to parents and girls should do much good.
  

  Link to this forum: Life and The Featherbrained Flapper.

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