Where nothing goes to waste, least of all kindness, by Kirsty Gillies
An original contemporary magazine article.
The old carpet shop on Wellgate still has its sign, faded red letters advertising ‘ROLL ENDS HALF PRICE’. Inside, there is not a carpet in sight. Instead, there are rails of tiny vests sorted by size, a wall of folded cot sheets, a row of pushchairs lined up like cars in a showroom, and a smell of washing powder so strong it is almost a welcome in itself.
This is the Little Steps Baby Bank, and last year it gave free clothes, equipment and toys to more than 1,600 babies and children in Dunford and the villages around it.
It was started four years ago by Morven Moncrieff, a former nursery nurse, after she met a mother at a bus stop carrying a newborn wrapped in a bath towel. ‘She had a baby and nothing else,’ Morven says. ‘No pram, no clothes, no cot. She was sleeping him in a drawer. I went home and couldn’t stop thinking about it.’ Within a month, Morven’s spare room was full of donated baby clothes. Within a year, so was her garage, her hallway and, her husband points out, most of the bath.
Families are referred by midwives, health visitors and social workers. Each one receives a bundle chosen for them personally: clothes in the right sizes, a sling or a pushchair, blankets, bottles and, always, a soft toy and a book. Volunteers wash, iron and check every item. Nothing torn goes out. Nothing stained. ‘These parents are having a hard enough time,’ says volunteer Morag Dunne, folding a cardigan with the care of an assistant in an expensive boutique. ‘The least we can do is make it feel like a present.’
The people who come through the door have all kinds of stories. Some have fled violence and arrived in Dunford with a single bag. Some have lost a job just before a baby was due. Some are teenagers. Many work full time and still cannot afford a cot. I meet Tariq, a young father who collected two car seats and a double pushchair last spring when his partner gave birth to twins six weeks early. ‘We had bought one of everything,’ he says. ‘Then suddenly we needed two. These people just said yes. No forms in triplicate, no looking down at you. Just yes.’
Behind the kindness is serious organisation. Every car seat is bought new, because second-hand seats cannot be safety checked. A local garage collects and delivers large items for free. A primary school runs a ‘bring a vest’ week every January. And a waiting list that once stretched to six weeks is now down to nine days.
It is still not enough, Morven says. Demand has doubled in two years. The shop’s lease runs out next summer, and she does not yet know where they will go. But when I ask whether she ever wishes she had never stopped at that bus stop, she laughs at me.
‘Every single bundle that goes out of here,’ she says, ‘is a baby who’s warm tonight. You don’t get tired of that.’
On the way out, I notice a board by the door covered in photographs sent in by families: babies in snowsuits, toddlers on trikes, a pair of twins in matching hats. Underneath, someone has written in marker pen: ‘Look what you did.’
The Little Steps Baby Bank is described as making a real difference to families. How does the writer try to show this?
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120 exam-style questions on Eduqas GCSE English Language 2.1.1 Two unseen non-fiction texts, 19th and 21st century. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.