The year of my two "disasters".
My sixth year was a wee bit fateful. I cannot remember which came first, but in that year I came down with scarlet fever, and one of my legs was fractured.
The scarlet fever led to my being taken to the isolation unit at Ham Green Hospital in the village of Pill. (Never thought about it until yesterday, but “Pill” is not a bad name for a village with a Hospital!)
I was taken by ambulance - this for me was a wonderful adventure. During the journey I heard the bell named “Great George” in the Wills Memorial Tower at Bristol University.
This handsome neo-Gothic tower had been erected with tobacco money from a member of the W.D. and H.O. Wills tobacco company. The bell, named, as all bells should be, could be heard in many parts of the City.
Early each morning at Ham Green Hospital all the morning nurses - sisters, staff nurses and ward nurses would walk, be-cloaked, in a solemn procession from their dormitories to the wards - led by none other than the head nurse “Matron”. I believe that they had also been led in prayer by Matron before the silent procession .
Dad and Mum could visit me, but could only view me through a window. I can see them there even now. They brought a care parcel with fruit and sweets (candies).
One day I asked a nurse if I might eat an apple - in the care package at the foot of my bed.
“No” she said, “it will spoil your dinner”.
Nurse left and I reasoned “it’s my apple, I shall eat it despite what nurse said”. I ate half the apple, and hid the other half under the covers.
Nurse discovered that half apple, scolded me, and then slapped me!
I was discharged a day earlier than had been planned. I arrived home mid-afternoon before Dad had returned from work. I hid under the kitchen table with its covering which reached the floor - and surprised my Dad when he arrived home.
In a strange irony, Dad died at Ham Green Hospital some 24 years later.
Mum and Dad had prepared a second care parcel for me. They urged me to share it with my twin sister. Did I do so?
In that same year Mum took me to a wedding of someone or other, at St. Werburgh’s Church. (In those days folks would attend the wedding ceremony of a close acquaintance, even if they had not been invited to the wedding and reception).
After the wedding we walked to the ‘bus, alongside Brooks’ Laundry where Mum had worked after school. The pavement (sidewalk) was uneven. Mum tripped, knocked me to the ground, fell onto to me - and hey presto my leg was fractured.
Off to the Bristol Royal Infirmary where I was fitted with what Americans call a cast and the British call a plaster. It was made of plaster of Paris, and boy was it heavy.
The milkman, Pete Bedford, would call me “peg-leg”, which made me mad.
I was exempted from morning assembly (prayers) at Greenbank Infants’ School, which made me glad.
My Grandmother, Nanny Povey, took me to the BRI the day the plaster was removed. As we left the Hospital she scolded me. “Now stop that limping” she said, “or you’ll limp for the rest of your life”.
I cannot remember if she added “make haste”, two words we she often used.
At nine or ten I was in Bristol General Hospital to “have my tonsils out”. (Tonsillectomy is a grand word which we never used!).
Americans get hospitalized. British people are “in hospital” (never in the hospital).
I have not been in hospital (as a patient) since then.
The scarlet fever led to my being taken to the isolation unit at Ham Green Hospital in the village of Pill. (Never thought about it until yesterday, but “Pill” is not a bad name for a village with a Hospital!)
I was taken by ambulance - this for me was a wonderful adventure. During the journey I heard the bell named “Great George” in the Wills Memorial Tower at Bristol University.
This handsome neo-Gothic tower had been erected with tobacco money from a member of the W.D. and H.O. Wills tobacco company. The bell, named, as all bells should be, could be heard in many parts of the City.
Early each morning at Ham Green Hospital all the morning nurses - sisters, staff nurses and ward nurses would walk, be-cloaked, in a solemn procession from their dormitories to the wards - led by none other than the head nurse “Matron”. I believe that they had also been led in prayer by Matron before the silent procession .
Dad and Mum could visit me, but could only view me through a window. I can see them there even now. They brought a care parcel with fruit and sweets (candies).
One day I asked a nurse if I might eat an apple - in the care package at the foot of my bed.
“No” she said, “it will spoil your dinner”.
Nurse left and I reasoned “it’s my apple, I shall eat it despite what nurse said”. I ate half the apple, and hid the other half under the covers.
Nurse discovered that half apple, scolded me, and then slapped me!
I was discharged a day earlier than had been planned. I arrived home mid-afternoon before Dad had returned from work. I hid under the kitchen table with its covering which reached the floor - and surprised my Dad when he arrived home.
In a strange irony, Dad died at Ham Green Hospital some 24 years later.
Mum and Dad had prepared a second care parcel for me. They urged me to share it with my twin sister. Did I do so?
In that same year Mum took me to a wedding of someone or other, at St. Werburgh’s Church. (In those days folks would attend the wedding ceremony of a close acquaintance, even if they had not been invited to the wedding and reception).
After the wedding we walked to the ‘bus, alongside Brooks’ Laundry where Mum had worked after school. The pavement (sidewalk) was uneven. Mum tripped, knocked me to the ground, fell onto to me - and hey presto my leg was fractured.
Off to the Bristol Royal Infirmary where I was fitted with what Americans call a cast and the British call a plaster. It was made of plaster of Paris, and boy was it heavy.
The milkman, Pete Bedford, would call me “peg-leg”, which made me mad.
I was exempted from morning assembly (prayers) at Greenbank Infants’ School, which made me glad.
My Grandmother, Nanny Povey, took me to the BRI the day the plaster was removed. As we left the Hospital she scolded me. “Now stop that limping” she said, “or you’ll limp for the rest of your life”.
I cannot remember if she added “make haste”, two words we she often used.
At nine or ten I was in Bristol General Hospital to “have my tonsils out”. (Tonsillectomy is a grand word which we never used!).
Americans get hospitalized. British people are “in hospital” (never in the hospital).
I have not been in hospital (as a patient) since then.
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