the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Elsie Harrod : [on the housing question: proposing that no house should be built to last for more than ten years]

'Meeting held at 7 Marlborough Avenue, 21.XI.44
    A. G. Joselin in the chair.

[...]

2. The minutes of the last meeting were read and after considerable discussion & some alteration, signed.

5. After adjourning for refreshment we listened with very great interest to some letters from Ralph Smith and also one from a repatriated Prisoner of War giving first hand news of him.

6. Knox Taylor opened our evening of controversial subjects by a defence of ‘Vice’. He maintained that drinking and gambling in moderation were harmless in themselves when dissociated from their social evils. In the discussion which followed members seemed on the whole to favour a life of virtue, being unwilling thus to separate cause from effect.

7. Elsie Harrod spoke on the housing question and after putting forward the many problems which must be considered by those responsible for building the houses for this generation, she proposed that the only way of meeting all requirements was to pass a law that no house should be built to last for more than 10 years. The chief argument which was put forward against this was that if the house was guaranteed to decay in 10 years what would it be like in the 2 or 3 years preceding this limit.

8. In a vehement and convincing discourse F. E. Pollard defended Reason against this Age of Unreason. A lively discussion which followed showed that the speaker had largely carried his audience with him along the path of Reason, although some of us were unwilling to part with our sub-conscious minds.

[signed as a true record by] Muriel M. Stevens 16-12-44'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Elsie Harrod      Manuscript: Unknown

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