大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by CSV Storygatherer Louise Smith on behalf of Wendy Attewell. The story has been added to the site with their permission and Wendy Attewell fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

I was born in December 1939 in Wellington, Somerset. When I was nine months old I fell out of my baby chair and onto an open coal fire. My mother had only just removed the guard to put more fuel on, when I dropped a toy and tried to retrieve it. We didn鈥檛 have fitted carpets then, only lino and rugs. The chair which had castors, slipped and toppled me into the fire. Fortunately, only my forehead was burnt. My mother, who was a nurse, was devastated. I remember as a small child, having my head bandaged for quite some time.

At this time, we were living in a hospital house at Tone Vale, my father worked in the mental hospital there. We were incredibly lucky in that our GP, Dr Woodgate-Jones of Bishops Lydeard, was a very astute doctor. He had heard of a children鈥檚 burns unit where plastic surgery was being carried out. Close up photos were sent to the surgeons. One of the surgeons was Sir Eric Gillies who, I believe, worked with Sir Archibald McIndoe. They had taken over a mental hospital at Basingstoke so they could operate away from London and the bombing.

In October 1946, I was taken to Basingstoke. My father had to hire a car and managed, with great difficulty, to get petrol. I was in hospital for 4 weeks and only had one visitor, an aunt from London. My parents wrote frequently, but had no means of travelling.

After my operation I had to have physiotherapy as all the burnt tissue had been removed and my skin stretched up from my neck and I had a suture line across my forehead. This made my face very taut so I had to sit in front of a mirror with my face covered in Vaseline and practice smiling, frowning, etc.

One of my most vivid memories is the physiotherapy room. The children, many of them recovering from horrendous burns and injuries as a result of the bombing, shared the room with adult patients. These were mainly RAF pilots and to this day I can see them with their arms up to their faces where pedicle grafts were being taken and them soaking their burnt limbs in saline baths.

My classmates at Oake School sent me letters each week. This was their weekly essay exercise. I also received food parcels. Tone Vale was just a hamlet of hospital houses so everyone knew each other and everyone contributed something from their rations. These I shared with all the other children. We had to try and wash our own clothes and I took several shrunken jumpers home! I think I was fortunate that plastic surgery was being developed then. If it hadn鈥檛 been for the war, this may not have been so.

I have a small scar on my forehead now, it has never bothered me, and my husband and daughters say they never notice it. Five years ago I retired as the nurse manager of the endoscopy unit at Derriford Hospital.

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