105 Union Street

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Mr. A. C. Little, a local clothing store, was located just across the way. With the help of the Bairns’ Fund for Boots & Clothing, he was able to donate pairs of boots. A total of 1,391 were given out through this Fund in 1925. Why were so many pairs of boots needed? Aberdeen was still in the grip of recession and the Association was working hard to place men and women in employment. They did a very good job of it too and placed 180 men and 73 women in employment, with 80% being placed in permanent employment. A shoemaker was employed for eight months of the year and supplied 1,100 pairs of shoes and boots for men and women to go their new jobs in. Many others sent clothing, bedding, food and coal. With the help of people like Mr. A.C. Little and the Bairns Fund, the newly employed where ready to face the future better prepared.

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“In the more prosperous parts of the world the decade became known as the Roaring Twenties but not in Aberdeen which was in the grip of the Recession Twenties. As the proprietor of a successful clothing store at 105 Union Street named after me, A. C. Little, I was fortunate to enjoy a comfortable life during that post war period but with unemployment rampant many were not so lucky.

In 1925 the Charity set up the Bairns Fund for Boots and Clothing to ensure that children were warmly clothed and didn’t have to tramp to school in their bare feet. Despite its name the charity also ensured that the men and women they had secured employment were properly shod as they went off to their new jobs and even went and employed a shoemaker of their own to mend items of footwear that could be satisfactorily restored. I was so impressed by the charity’s initiative that I decided to get involved and to help in my own modest way by donating boots from the stock of footwear in my shop to that most worthy cause”.

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