V.C. OPENS SECOND HOME FOR THE SICK

Leonard Cheshire starts new the edge of an airfiehi
By ANDREW BOYLE
GROUP Captain Geoffrey Leonard Cheshire,
V.C., who as Mr. Churchill's official observer saw the second atom bomb pulverise Nagasaki, and whose silent " mercy work " for the homeless, unwanted sick at his own nursing home at Liss, Hants, partly inspired his conversion in 1948, is on top of the world again.
For his second foundation for helpless people of ail faiths and ages is being opened today (Friday) on the edge of i remote Cornish airfield.
The first two patients will he received at once in this new home, which is dedicated to St. Joseph, patron of the ckying, and St. Teresa. Yet less than three months ago the new nursing home was —in his own words—" a dilap idated, dirty building" which had been left untouched since its abandonment by the Service authorities at the end of the war. -I a fleeting of the London branch of the Catholic Professional Social Workers at the Sodality Hall, Mount Street, W.. on Tuesday night, Leonard Cheshire told the story of his labours for the sick and how they started, with a simplicity that moved every one of his listeners. The chairman, Bishop Craven, commented afterwards: " I can't help feeling that the work you have begun is bound to succeed. I have seldom heard a tale of such courage. faith. humility and utter dependence on Divine Providence.
" I can see the hand of God in all that happened."
Recalling that it was exactly three years ago this week since the 25-bedroomed mansirm, standing in its 150 acres on a Hampshire hill. became the home of his first patient. Cheshire unfolded the circumstances that brought 70-year-old, cancerridden Arthur Dykes to his front door.
OUTCASTS
"The local hospital could not keep him. I tried to fill, someone to look after hint. No one would. So in the end I did. I nursed him and cared for him. " He was a Catholic — though I don't think he had practised his faith much. I was still outside the Church. groping, trying to wipe out the £18.000 debt contracted by a foolish but well-meaning scheme to resettle ex-Servicemen at Liss. " As I watched Arthur change from sadness to happiness. 1 realised that he was not the only one of his kind. And I made up my mind that if any more outcast sick caine along. I would take them in, too." More did come. 1 here was. for instance. 90-year-old Granny Haynes. stone-deaf, infirm. and uncertain at the beginning if she wanted to stay. There was the young man suffering from tuberculosis so badly that when he arrived it was " a case of a haemorrhage every second day."
Commented Cheshire: " I didn't even know then that the disease was infectious. I had a lot to learn." There were always money problems. and Leonard Cheshire's refusal to be stampeded by the lack of it often raised ohiections and criticisms.
OLD AND YOUNG
The extraordinary fact was, however, that his patients went short of nothing essential, and eventually the critics and objectors were silenced. " It would have been a far more marvellous thing for me to do what had to he done with money rather than without it." said Cheshire. " It would have been easy to grow a little careless and to take all the credit myself if there had been ample funds to work with." Today, the Le Court Nursing Home at Liss is clear of debt, and its 36 patients are tended by a trained staff in an atmosphere of Christian charity that is unique. Group Captain Cheshire explained how he had decided to look after the aged sick as well as the young. and to ignore the materialist outlook of those " who forget that death is the most important part of life." He admitted that at one period he feared and " felt awkward " at the thought of the dying. but his fear has disappeared in his work. St. Teresa's and St. Joseph's. which still lacks the refinement of modern sanitation, has its own beautiful little chapel. its own staff and the support of a great number of local volunteers.
It will be, as it were. the annexe
of Le Court, reserved for more serious cases.
" We shall get over the material difficulties all right," Cheshire told me. " because everyone — from the local authorities to the smallest local inhabitant — can't do enough to help. " When I say we don't need money I mean simply that Ern never troubled at not having ready cash to lay hands on. It always seems to turn up.
" On the other hand. there is an immediate shortage of goods. For instance, bedding is scarce. And we are still without some hems of altar equipment for the chapel—such as a chalice. and vestments.
" I am thrilled. nevertheless, that we should already be so happily placed in so brief a time."