Almost Too Good to Be True

For some 16 years rotund, toothless George Herbert Naylor has worked for a wholesale grocer firm in Wisbech (rhymes with fizz peach), Cambridgeshire. For almost every one of those years his plump wife Lillian has borne him a child. George's wages are -L-4 10s.. a week. His eldest daughters Marian (18) and Hazel (17) bring home some -L-3 between them from jobs at local shops.

But even with the added shillings earned by sons John (14), Frank (12) and Leonard (11) as errand boys, motherly Mrs. Naylor has sometimes found it hard to pay the rent on their poky brick cottage and feed a family of 17, not to mention the two cats (Monty & Piddly), a mongrel dog, Billy the canary, two pigs, 16 chickens and a duck. Nevertheless, says Mrs. Naylor of her brood: "I wouldn't be without one of them."

To lighten the burden of such Empire-building philoprogenitiveness as the Naylors', William Pitt 150 years ago suggested that Parliament contribute to the support of large poor families. Nothing was done about it until 1942, when Sir William Beveridge's "Womb to Tomb" plan prodded a census-minded government to action. In 1945, a month before the Labor Party came to power, the family allowance plan became law.

Last week, like some two million other hard-pressed British mothers, Lillian Naylor went to the local post office, presented her order book and signed her name. Promptly Wisbech's postmistress (Lillian's widowed sister) handed her -L-2 15s. ($11)--the Naylor family's weekly allotment under the new plan. Other mothers collected five shillings for each of their children under 14 except the eldest.

Said Lillian: "Just like buying a stamp. It's almost too good to be true!"

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