The importance of the Centre as both family and community comes through the words of the members. Alison Stallibrass recorded interviews with past members and the following excerpts are taken from her book 'Being Me and Also us' . see publications

"It was a happy place. I can't think of anyone being really grumbly. I used to go there for the whole afternoon and I really enjoyed it…You got friendly with people who had children the same age. ..

I had three children, then, and one day I felt terrible. I couldn't even wash a nappy…I took the children to the nursery and Mrs Collins looked at me. She said, 'You need to see the Doctor,' and …they said, 'You have got appendicitis. You'll have to go into hospital.' I said, 'I can't go. What about the children?' And they said,'What is the Centre for? They'll be all right.' The children were looked after. The woman who was helping in the nursery, she had Stella. Mrs Collins…took Brian, and Mrs Patterson had the baby. She lived in the same street, so my husband had the baby at night and took him along in the morning. (May)

"My early and continuing personality development was enormously influenced for the good through my family membership of the Centre. The results obtained in terms of personality development and improved 'health' were absolutely astounding." (John)

"I think it was a marvellous thing for families. It gave Colin a freedom he wouldn't have had. We used to let him go down there alone whereas we wouldn't have let him go elsewhere. We are still friends with people we knew there." (Mrs G)

"Being a child in the Centre was being part of an extended family." (Olive)

"An all-age community evolved. The Centre became an extension of the family's home in the sense of a place in which one feels at home, a place with which one is thoroughly familiar an din which one is able to act both spontaneously and effectively. It was like home also in the sense of something one is playing part in creating. Everybody, young or old, was able to be himself, and this caused diversity in the Centre life that made it easy to find companions and occupations to one's liking. In time it became a place the shy and retiring could also enjoy. ..


The 1st and 3rd generation Center family

There were members who did not share this community life. Some did not come often enough to make long-term acquaintances; there were families who belonged only for the sake of the children, the parents visiting only on the occasion of their medical examination.

It has to be admitted that a sense of responsibility for the Centre was not absolutely universal. There were a few families who bilked the Centre of their membership subscriptions for a time. A former member maintains that, at parties or on Saturday nights in the post-war period, a few people took advantage of the minimum staffing and practice of self-service to avoid paying for what they had from the cafeteria " (Alison Stallibrass in 'Being Me and Also Us')

"Well, I think that the good thing that came out of all this is that all those years from the wartime we are still good friends, we have kept in touch with each other all these years. I didn't have any friends before. I wasn't a good mixer at all. I was terrible really, that's why, when I first joined the Centre, I left again - because I couldn't talk to people, but once I got in with the badminton and my husband began playing darts. With children, you got talking with mothers, and gradually I got into it. Once you get into a little group you can't just sit back can you? You have got to have a little bit off a say, and it really brought me out." (Rose)

(In recollecting the discussions about its closure) ' Finally, after more than one meeting, a proposition was made to us. It was this: the Centre would reopen under the auspices of the LCC but without the Doctors and the Medical Department. We questioned further and found there was no understanding of family membership. There would undoubtedly be a session for grown-ups, and others for teenagers and children. ~Everything would be well organised! They could not envisage the family doing things together or apart, without the utmost chaos."(Elsie)