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This is Emily Stephenson of Southmoor Community School, Sunderland entering Dorothy Hodgson, Raymond Hodgson and Anne Slater onto the website and they fully understand the website terms and conditions of use. Dorothy Hodgson was born in 1936, Raymond Hodgson in 1934 and Anne Slater in 1931. They were all young in the war but still remember it vividly. They can remember their health and diet and how the National Health Service changed their lives.
‘Fruit was a luxury during the war we would rarely ever get any’ Raymond recalled. There was a lot of food that you can get now that wasn’t available during WW2 including crisps, pizza and any famous sweets. ‘I can remember that we would hardly ever get tomatoes’ Raymond said.
‘We got 1/3 of a pint of milk at school and that was practically the only liquid milk we got it was nearly all dried and so were the eggs’, Dorothy added.
‘I lived in the countryside and we had access to gardens so we had plenty of vegetables. The people down the road had an egg farm so there were lots of them too.’ Anne said.
If you were ill during the war you could still visit your GP in his surgery but you had to pay and there were no appointments. ‘You had to pay half a crown to visit the doctor, if you couldn’t afford it you were given a card which you had until you paid it all off’, Raymond remembered.
‘The doctor did come to your house but only if you were very ill.’ Anne said.
As there were no appointments you had to sit in the waiting room until the doctor was ready to see you, sometimes it would take a very long time. Throughout the war there were no antibiotics available.
Your school had its own dentist so there was no charge. If you did have to, then there was anaesthetic there to put you asleep. You didn’t visit the dentist regularly just whenever the school decided.
‘I can remember that in every hospital ward there was a big coal fire.’ Dorothy said.
You could only visit the patients once a day and there was no choice of food — you got what you were given.
There were medicines available during the war but they were very expensive, these could be obtained from the chemist.
Having a war baby was very different than today. There were no anti/post natal classes and a midwife only visited a couple of times after the baby was born. Both Dorothy and Anne can remember their mothers having babies. They said that it was very unlikely for the midwife to deliver the baby so a friend or neighbour came to help and later the midwife came to check the baby. If the midwife did come the only painkillers you were given was ‘Aspro’ on a strip. The newborn babies were rarely vaccinated but if they were, they were immunised against diphtheria. ‘If someone had a disease such as whopping cough then your whole class at school was vaccinated then not when they were born.’ Anne said.
Mothers them days were advised to breast feed and most did if they had time to.
‘I would definitely say that people are healthier today than during the war.’ Raymond said, ‘Yes, I agree we didn’t have much fruit or vegetables then’ Dorothy added.
On the other hand Anne said ‘I think we were actually healthier during the war because we had plenty of fruit and vegetables and things with additives in weren’t available.’
In 1948 the National Health Service was introduced. Raymond thought it was the best thing that ever happened as there was no charge to see the doctor and some medication was free. ‘Things happened more or less straight away’, Dorothy said ‘Things were definitely better but I rarely visited the doctor so I didn’t notice much difference. Anne said

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