Looking Back: Glasgow Rehabilitation Centre

From December 1964

LABELLED... BUT NOT FOR LIFE!

AUDREY GILLON visited the Glasgow Rehabilitation Centre for us

IN these days the trend is for great results from little effort. Whether it is the polish of car or furniture, the washing of clothes or floor, advertisers assure us that, by using their product, we can achieve the maximum brightness for the minimum of labour.

There is even one all-in gadget of which manufacturers boast, “You need never kneel again!”

In the realm of human relationships the converse is true. It takes a tremendous amount of patience and effort to make any headway at all. Only by kneeling, only by prayer, can any progress be made.

Work in the Glasgow Rehabilitation Centre is not easy. There is no question of men and women in distress walking in one door and leaving by another, completely cured. Rather it is the gradual miracle of building up confidence, little by little; of providing visible proof that God, through His Church, cares.

The project owed much in its beginnings to the Rev. Tom Allan, who had long felt the need of a Church Centre with emergency beds available. The congregation of St. George’s Tron pledged themselves to contribute £1,000 a year towards the scheme, and the Social and Moral Welfare Board undertook the entire responsibility.

Since that time some 2,500 people in moral difficulties have been helped. More than half that number have been men. No money is given out. Where there is financial difficulty through too much hire purchase, the social worker contacts the various firms concerned, to try to get the instalments reduced and paid over a longer period. Then he helps to draw up a feasible budget so that, in time, the family will be clear of debt. There is much visiting to be done, both in hospitals and prisons.

From the courts

Not all who arrive at the Rehabilitation Centre come seeking help. Many are sent by the courts, probation officers and the police.

Naturally, the first reaction in these instances is one of defiant resentment. An aggressive determination to go their own way and not to be stopped or patronised by anyone.

Some have never known the simplest routine. Regular meal times and sitting round a properly set table can be completely foreign to a girl who has lived on parcels of chips.

To provide a basis of orderly living, girls who come to the Centre are transferred as soon as possible to the Hostel, where they can settle down more quickly among others of their own age. Amid the comfortable surroundings of home life they are given every opportunity to adapt themselves.

At first it is an unwelcome experience to find they are expected to get up in the morning, just as it is utterly strange to get used to the idea of going to bed before midnight. Work is found, but again there is the restlessness which can lead to a girl of sixteen having been in as many as ten different jobs.

It is a long, slow process of building up a realisation within the girl that the Centre is trying to help. Not because of a goody-goody attitude, but because of a genuine, deep concern that a young life for whom Christ died might not be wasted.

Homely

There is no brass plate outside either the Rehabilitation Centre or its Hostel. Nothing to cause embarrassment to anyone seeking help. Inside, there is a staff of kindly, trained people of calm, good sense.

The Hostel reflects the same shining good order deepened by a homely atmosphere. The big coal fire in the lounge casts a welcoming glow over the comfortable chairs and thick curtains.

The facilities are there, yet at times the task must be disheartening. For someone of whom they had high hopes may be reported in trouble again. But the work goes on.

How can we in the Church help? Teenage clothing in good condition is most acceptable, as is wool for knitting, a blouse length of material or games and jigsaws. Money is needed. It takes some £6,000 a year to run such an enterprise. Above all, we must support the Staff in our prayers that, through them, the gradual miracle may be accomplished in the lives of men and women.

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