Secret Garden

At last photos of our new day centre ... is it a strange name? How did we choose it? When I first saw the house all overgrown and mysterious looking, I thought of my favourite childhood story 'The Secret Garden'. When I first took our colleague Helen to see the house, her first words were "Oh darling, how wonderful, just like 'The Secret Garden', I love it!" Since then, so many people's first words on seeing the building have been similar and so we adopted the name. For the uninitiated the story is about an unwanted orphan girl and her newly discovered equally unwanted paralysed cousin finding new life through a hidden garden. Do read the book because it's a lovely story.

As yet we have renovated two activity rooms, put in two shower rooms and a disabled toilet, renewed all the mains drainage and installed central heating. Whenever funds become available we will continue with the renovation which will include kitchen, dining room and office. In the meantime we are delighted with what we have as are the street children and other homeless or semi-homeless people.

As yet we do not have all the necessary authorisations but we are opening on a casual basis for folks to come and have hot showers and a bite to eat, as well as a warm place to sit and chat or play games. At the moment we have a good supply of clothing and so we are also giving clothes to all who come according to their needs. The new washing machine has now been installed (by Jan) and is anticipated to be a big hit!