Early NHS experiences

I believe the NHS started July 5th 1948, when I was three.

Being born before the NHS, Mum had me at home, just like in that series 'call the midwife'. Dad was with her, and I was taking my time to arrive, so he told her a filthy joke, and I was born as she and the midwife were laughing their heads off. Somehow, this has always seemed significant to my life.

I was about 5 or 6 when I had my tonsils out in a Plymouth hospital, I was born in 1946 so that would be about 4 years into the NHS. I remember the high sided metal cot I was in. I was in hospital for a week and parents were not allowed to visit at all. Nurse had one of those nice triangular pointed head gear, blue dress and starched apron with a watch - delightful. Mum had no idea when or how I would be sent home and I apparently arrived one day in a car. Just as well someone was in I suppose.

I had my tonsils out because of recurring ear problems. I can remember the awful pain and how my ear would "run" and stick to the pillow. I guess that was before antibiotics were available.

When my aunt (born 1916) had scarlet fever aged five and was in hospital she told me her parents weren't allowed to visit but they would let the ward sister know when they would be outside in the street and my aunt would be allowed to stand by the window so she could see them. I loved Virol and orange juice. Another aunt breast fed her babies but maybe because of rationing, was allowed powdered baby milk which we all drank and which I also loved. I had penicillin gauze for a bad burn in about 1951 and penicillin lozenges in 1948 for what we call strep throat now. But the bugs hadn't developed resistance then. I had my tonsils and adenoids out on an adult ward just after the war. I was telling an old friend about this awful experience and he said his had been removed in the kitchen!

Having my tonsils out and missing my parents who were only allowed to visit once a day. I used to bawl my eyes out when they left. Once they gave me a musical box which only play Carnival in Venice. I played it virtually non stop and it must have driven the nurses mad! I remember the mask going over my face and the sweet sickly smell of the gas and feeling dizzy......I liked the ice cream afterwards though! The nurses were very kind and I also remember the sister with her flap head dress. I was around 6 and in a cot! Only the older children were in beds.

I also had scarlet fever at age 6.Taken in the dark to an isolation hospital run by one doctor and his nurse /wife.Weekly visits by mum/dad- had to talk to them through a window.Cried buckets after each visit.

Just before our Queen's coronation, to escape punishment for having it, I swallowed some bubblegum. Some days later I was rushed to hospital (the ambulance had an old fashioned bell) with stomach pains and suspected appendicitis. I was a small frightened girl in a huge childrens ward which boasted a coal-fired range in its centre. The nurses wore blue dresses, white cuffs and aprons, white caps with a back 'flap'. Only parents were allowed to visit and then only for one hour. Matron did the rounds every day and ruled the ward with a rod of iron. A doctor snapped on a rubber glove to examine me and extracted the offending blockage during my first day. I had to stay in there for a whole week 'under observation' !

Has anyone been watching the excellent series on BBC4 about the early days of the NHS?

When I was seven I had scarlet fever and had to be isolated for six weeks four of them in bed. While I was there my mother caught it and we spent weeks together in the same bed. People would leave food outside the door. I think I eventually recovered

I was born when the NHS the norm but my mum didn't believe in bothering the doctor unless you were almost dying.

When I was three I had a very serious fall down the attic stairs. I hit my face on walls, the door and finally my mums iron bedstead and was knocked out for a couple of minutes. First my mum sat me on the kitchen table with a wet cloth on my face. Then she took me to the chemist. It was only the next day when I was no longer able to open my eyes due to the bruising that she finally decided to take me to see the doctor. We went on the bus even though I was unable to see. That meant I had to walk 500 yards and cross two major roads. She would never have dreamed of calling him out as I was quite capable of walking.

There was free orange juice and cod liver oil before the NHS. It was supplied by the Ministry of Food during and after the war. My dad used to bring us orange juice before we got up in the morning. What a 'new man' he was for those days.

Oh I forgot , I loved cod liver oil and malt , it was just like runny toffee... and that orange juice with a turquoise lid was just so concentrated , but nice.

I was born the day after the NHS came into being, I remember my Mum telling me how relieved she was that she would be able to then get free medical help for her family, before this they could hardly afford the rent never mine medicines. I can remember going with my older sister to the clinic for tins of baby milk, orange juice and cod liver oil and malt .

When I was about 10 my baby teeth refused to come out so they had to be extracted. My mum was a nurse so she covered the kitchen table with a sheet pinned down and the dentist and our GP came to our house. The GP gave my an anasthetic I still remember the mask on my face and the shapes I saw as I went under . I remember waking to lots of blood in my mouth but I must have recovered quickly as my friend visited me with a gift of gobs toppers when I proceeded to suck.

I was four when the NHS was born.When I was seven I got Scarlet Fever and shortley afterwards something my mother called''Poison in the bloodstream''.
For one of these illnesses I was treat with large pink tablets which had a P on them.They must have been penicillen and they smelt awful, but they were obviously effective.
Scarlet Fever must have been the scary illness.I had to go to my grandmother's to be cared for as there were younger children at home who were in danger of catching it from me. People in the family were talking in hushed tones as my mother had a cousin who died of Scarlet Fever in the 1920s aged two.

Virol and liberty bodices post-pneumonia, just at the time of the advent of the NHS. After mis-diagnosis by old-fashioned 'family' doctor (ie not much more effective than a witch doctor), we switched to a newly contracted NHS doctor who was very benign. Poor mum had quinsy throat treated with M&Bs to which she developed a reaction that sent her into hospital with sky-high fever - scary for us kids to be without her.

Our family doctor, with his black jacket and striped trousers, his little dispensary where he made up his own medicines and 'tonics' - retired rather than join the new NHS... it was all too much of a shake-up for him.

We used to enjoy 'clinic' orange juice in the 1940s but cold liver oil and malt was horrible - whoever thought of that combination?
My mother hardly ever took us to the doctor - she still remembered having to pay - and consequenty we were all pretty healthy! I did suffer from a bout of bronchitis every winter, but that was probably because my father smoked and I lived in the bronchitis centre of the world - Salford. I don't think the doctor ever prescribed anything for me, but my mother used to buy Friar's Balsalm which you put in a bowl of hot water and you sat with your head over the bowl with a towel to keep in the steam.
I remember Carters' Lttle Liver pills being widely advertised on posters.

Went on a school trip to the Craven 'A' factory, which was in Mornington Crescent... it ended up with all of us in the boardroom, puffing away on free fags!

"Smoke Craven 'A' - for your throat's sake!"

I got hooked on cigarettes in an NHS hospital. This was in the mid-fifties when you sat in your hospital bed with an ashtray beside you. I was 17, and while friends and family were giving the usual fruit and magazines, my gran was sending in packets of Craven A. Anyone remember those?

I remember prescribing them in the late sixties. But I can't remember what for? It was some sort of rash I think.

Ah - I was going to ask if anyone remembered M&B tablets...

While square-bashing at RAF Padgate in 1956, I became ill just in time for Easter leave - managed to make it home, and the doctor was called. Locum arrived, and proceeded to inject a sort of penicillin sludge with a needle like a sawn-off drainpipe, into my poor behind... the needle clogged, I remember, and I was rather bruised later. Still, I recovered from what turned out to be pharyngitis. I'm not sure if it was that time or not, but I think I followed up with a strychnine and iron 'tonic' (Doctors always gave you a tonic in those days! Why, I have no idea) which was probably the foulest thing I have ever had in my mouth...

I recall the horrible M&Bs and the delirium associated with being ill and taking sulphonamides. It was a great day when penicillin became more readily available.

susiecb

Charlotte there is a whole chapter of my book on this - would you like to publish it?

I was given penicillin in 1951 ish and had a severe allergic reaction, swelling up like a Michelin woman, and I haven't had it since.