The Boy with the Latch Key. Cathy Sharp

gone, but she needed them for emergency admissions.

      If only the new wing hadn’t been leased to the Children’s Welfare Department. She’d never had this worry once the new wing was built, because it provided a lot of much-needed extra space for her children, but the Board had decided that the future lay in moving the children out of the East End, nearer to the country where the conditions were better and the air was fresher, and Beatrice was only one voice. It meant that once again she was often short of beds for emergencies and had to pass her charges on sooner than she would like. Was she the only one who saw that some of these children could never belong anywhere but the streets where they were born and bred? At least here she’d been able to help many of them into good jobs and better lives than their parents had known.