Mobile Baths Give 90 Hot Showers an Hour . A
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N admirable service which has been AN use since the days of the heavy bombing by German aircraft on this country is that connected with hotbath facilities Rnd the supply of hot water to civilians and A.R.P. and N.F.S. personnel. This unique scheme was instituted, and is controlled, by Lever Brothers, Port Sunlight, Ltd., Port Sunlight, Cheshire, and is known as the Lifebuoy Emergency Bath Service.
At the present time there are 16 such units, 15 of which are in operation, and one kept as a spare for special emergency. The vehicles employed are 24' tonners, there being U Bedfords, four Fordsons and a Commer. To be :able to maintain a service of 90 hot shower-baths per hour, and that continuously, it is essential to have avail:able a fairly generous water-heating plant, and this, as witl be seen in one of the illustrations, is in the form of a large vertical boiler. Also carried in the vehicle are an emergency ta: k, holding 'between 200-220 gallons of
water, eight collapsible cubicles, towels, scrubbing brushes and other paraphernalia for the purposes of a bath.
The cubicles are readily opened out, and are erected adjacent to the vehicle. Each is of such a size that, by the simple expedient of suspending 4 canvas curtain in the centre of the cubicle it is divided into two compartments. In one, the person taking the shower undresses and hangs his or her clothes, and in the other arc the faciliIles for giving a hot shower-bath. The curtain, of course, protects the clothing from the water spray.
In the absence of regimented personnel it is •possible. to give approximately 300 baths per day per unit, ly-t, as previously mentioned, no fewer than 90 baths per hoar per unit are possible under what may be called all-out conditions.
These units are not idle during nonemergency peiiods as an excellent service is given to schools, under the direction of the Board of Education. Army personnel, too, are able to take advantage of the scheme, which has proved particularly useful at the numerous A.A. camps, situated in isolated areas.
The 15 units in operation have been allocated to the following districts:— West Ham, Bermondsey, . Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Plymouth, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Norwich, Birmingham. Cardiff, Glasgow,' Chatham, Derby, Southampton and Bristol.
Congratulations are due to the instigators and organizers of this bath service, as there is no doubt that, when employed barter emergency conditions. those able to take advantage of the faCilities offered become invigoratei and are able to face the immediate future with greater fortitude.