大象传媒

A Child in Hospital
I was five when the war broke out, I was five in May and I started school shortly after that. I remember the announcement of the war breaking out, my mum told us about it. I had four other sisters and I was the youngest, we were all a bit scared. I think it was in 1940 that I took ill at school. I was in the Crofton Infants School, at the time the Head Mistress was called Miss Ferrel, she was a really lovely lovely person. I was cold in the classroom, so I was shifted to a warmer seat and I must have fell asleep. Miss Ferrel came and told me that someone was going to take me home, which they did; an older girl took me home. When we got home my mum wasn't in so I was left at a neighbours house. I steadily got worse. I had server headaches and I think I was delirious now and again.

The Doctor was called eventually; in them days you didn't call the doctor unless it was really necessary. The doctor said that an ambulance would have to come and take me to the RVI. My father was in the "1st world war" and had had his arm blown off. He had no faith in hospitals because of the bad time he had had so he didn't want me to go into the hospital. But the doctor told him, so I was told later, that if anything happened to me it was on his conscience for the rest of his life. It must have been about five o'clock at night when the ambulance came and it wasn't an ambulance at all, it was a lorry, an army lorry with a red cross on the side. My mum had to clime in and I was lifted in. She sat on one of the wooden benches that were on either side. I was taken to the RVI and I was admitted.

The RVI has a very high roof as most people know, but the place that I was taken to was a tunnel of some sort because the roof was low. I think at the time there must have been an air raid going on, I'm not sure, but I wasn't taken in the main entrance. From there I was taken to a ward and the next thing I was taken to the operating theatre. There was someone asking me to blow this big black balloon up, which I did; I think it was an anaesthetist at the time. I came to in a ward in the hospital, people were around, visitors, and I asked for a pillow, getting one off one of the visitors. But a nurse came along and took it away from me.

I remember, one night, there must have been a very big air raid on and all the nurses in the hospital, or so it seemed, came to the children's ward and carried the children down the stairs underneath the RVI; I think there were shelters there. Those children who couldn't be taken out of their beds were left in the corridors and a nurse stayed with them. I remember that when I was in hospital I used to get up in the morning stand on the end of my bed and sing, so the nurses made me stand and sing for my breakfast every morning. I reckon the nurses were wonderful people.

After a while, when I started to get better, I was taken from the RVI to Stannington Hospital. We were taken in an army lorry again. There was a soldier stayed in the back with me and this other little boy that was being transferred to Stannington Hospital. On the way I wouldn't actually talk to the soldier. He did all sorts of things to make me smile and I wouldn't commit myself. Eventually he rolled up the tarpaulin on the back of the lorry so we could see the traffic behind us, which was very little. He'd stuck his knife in the tarpaulin to keep it up, but his knife fell out and went onto the road. I found that quite funny and he was quite pleased that I had found something to amuse myself.

We got to Stannington Hospital and I can remember there being a long cement corridor with different wards coming off this corridor. Between each of the wards there was a quadrangle of grass. As you got better the nurses would pull your bed out of the ward and put it on the grass so that you had the benefit of the sunshine. Now on the other side to where I was, was a ward with soldiers in it. The soldiers used to come out and talk to the children, and one nearly persuaded me to get out of my bed one day to get a bar of chocolate, but it started to rain so I never got my chocolate. There was another time where they used to bring shrapnel in for the children, but it was eventually taken off us because it was dangerous, with the lead content. There were nice times there. I learnt that a wireless travelled all over the country. I had learnt to sing "Run Rabbit Run" and when my sister came with my mum and dad they knew what the song was. I couldn't understand how they knew what the song was and how they knew it. But my dad explained and I found out how the wireless worked.

There were a few things that happened in the hospital like one day they came in with a jar of Jam and I had just eaten an orange. The head Mistress at the school that I was at had sent me a letter and told me about the Budgerigar who put his head underneath his bell ever time the sirens went. She had sent me two oranges and a packet of chocolate biscuits. I never saw where the chocolate biscuits went, I certainly didn't get them, but the oranges I got. I ate one of the oranges one day underneath the bed cloths, then the nurses came around with this jar of Jam so everyone had to have a spoonful of Jam. I told them if I had the spoonful of jam I would be sick but I was still made to take the spoonful of jam and was promptly sick all over the bed. I have never really ate jam since then, and I'm not struck on oranges either.

I was a bit of a lively child and always trying to get from my bed. One day one of the nurses took me for a walk around the wards. We got to the ward where the little ones were and they were strapped into their beds. Not with restraints like, but reins so they couldn't fall off, because they didn't have beds with sides in those days. The nurse told me that if I didn't stay in my bed they would have to put me in them too. She was just kidding?

Eventually I was allowed to go home. I had to travel from Stannington to Morpeth and from Morpeth to Blyth on the bus. At the time we stopped at a farm and my dad got a dozen fresh eggs and a honeycomb which we took home. When I got home to Blyth and got off the bus my sisters were waiting for us. Now, when I went into hospital we had a little puppy but when I came home it was a fully grown dog, so I was in hospital for quite a long while. I think that in those days they did keep you in hospital for quite a long while. What I haven't told you was that I had an abscess on my mastoid bone and that was the operation I had had, and I've a hole behind me ear to prove it. I don't know how long I was in the hospital. At the same time I was ill I was delirious a lot of the time, and unconscious a lot of the time, how I can remember it, I don't know it must have made a very big impression on me.

Some other memories.
My dad was a street warden, making sure there were no lights showing at doors and windows. He advised people to leave there windows slightly open when there was a heavy air raid on. No one took much notice till we had a lot of heavy booing one night. Every window in the street was blasted out except ours.

As war progressed my sisters and I still had trips to the beach. Walking from Blyth along the road to the beach the first interesting place was on the left hand side (we called the first sand's) It had been closed to the public and commandeered by the Royal Navy. Further along on the right hand side was the Wesley School (for naughty boys). It too was taken over by the Royal Navy, as quarters for the Sailors.

Further again along the road you would come to the second sands on the left hand side. The public were not allowed near the waters edge. Preventing access was very high scaffolding and barbed wire, also concrete blocks which are still to be seen today. Also a lot of lookouts made of concrete. As you walked as far as Glouster Lodge it was also out of bounds. Over on the right side were soldier's billets. What interested me and my sisters mostly was to watch the barrage balloons being blown up and sometimes reeled into the sky to obstruct aeroplanes.

Sweets were on ration, so as little treats my mother would mix dried breadcrumbs with sugar, put them into paper cones to eat on the way to school in the morning.

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