Report of the Departmental Committee on the Employment of Children as Film Actors, in Theatrical Work and in Ballet / presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for the Home Department by Command of His Majesty, August 1950.

  • Great Britain. Departmental Committee on the Employment of Children as Film Actors, in Theatrical Work and in Ballet
Date:
1950
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Departmental Committee on the Employment of Children as Film Actors, in Theatrical Work and in Ballet / presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for the Home Department by Command of His Majesty, August 1950. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not complain of the conditions found in their lodgings. To complain would seem to be a breach of loyalty to the matron or to their employer and they might be apprehensive, perhaps unreasonably, that the complainers would be sent home. They are not slow, nevertheless, to recognise and appreciate good lodgings. One of the troupes seen had played, a few weeks before, in a University town. Owing to a last minute cancellation of lodgings they had been accepted into University lodgings. The children had been delighted by the comfort of this house ; had revelled in the luxury of single beds, table-napkins and gracious, attractive surroundings and told us with enthusiasm about “the lovely house” in which they had stayed. 70. The nature of the work these children are doing demands good wash- ing facilities. At one house the landlady, who was also acting as joint matron, insisted on all the children having a bath every night adding that she had “too much respect for her sheets” to let the children go to bed unwashed. But on the same visit lodgings were seen where there was no bath and no hot water except what could be brought upstairs in jugs. 71. The worst conditions are likely when a troupe are at some distance from their “base” and staying for only a week at a time in one town. When children live away from home, the receiving authority have a duty to satisfy themselves before the children arrive that the lodgings are suit- able. In the month of January, we saw a troupe from a northern town, of whom six were children of licensable age; they were lodged in one house with four other girls over licensable age. The local authority insisted that only two children, in lieu of three as originally proposed, should share a bed. As more beds had to be provided, the bedding had to be eked out, and one blanket and one thin quilt only were available for each bed. 72. Some landladies are reluctant to provide full board and the matron frequently receives a lump sum out of which she caters for the children. An organisation which gave evidence before us quoted the following extract from a letter written by a landlady who had lodged but not boarded a troupe of children: “Some days their dinner was one tin of steak and pots [sic] so you can imagine how far that would go between 12 children and Matron, and for supper sometimes two tins of soup; to my idea they never had a proper meal. The people round about asked me if they were fed, as they were never away from a little Baker’s shop across the street. All their pocket money must have been spent there.” 73. We were told of a case where the matron ran the food side of her responsibilities as a profit-making business, Some children were found in tears after the lunch hour; the matron, for a punishment, had deprived them of their lunch. The witness thought that local authority officers would never get to know of such abuses as the children would not tell tales on the matron. This suggests that local authority officers should always arrange to see the children at some time apart from the matron. Touring* 74. The proportion of licences relating to touring—one third of the total —is larger than perhaps might be expected, having regard to the objections to touring expressed on behalf of the licensing authorities. It has not apparently been sufficiently appreciated that an application for a licence to tour can be rejected solely on the grounds that touring is prejudicial to the * The expression “touring ”’ is used to cover a series of engagements at various towns with a short run in each, and not an engagement away from home but confined to one town only which we call a resident season away from home.
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