Memories - early or general

Thank you Helen and the forum for being understanding and providing an outlet for some of my memories. Last week I had my blood pressure taken for a pre-op, (operation now delayed by the doctors' strike!). It was 187/95 after sitting still in the waiting room for 20 minutes. Whenever I enter a hospital building my autonomic nervous system unconsciously presses the red emergency button even 70 years after traumatic events. One reason for writing an autobiography is to understand and lay to rest ghosts of PTSD. Much as we now complain about failing services elsewhere in the forum, the attitude to treating sick children has certainly changed for the better. During my treatment for polio I was tied flat in a cot sloping 30 degrees head-down to drain my collapsed lung, force fed, given enemas and allowed two visits of 30 minutes a week. The atmosphere of the ward was one of repression because the nurses, many of whom were cadets of 17 years old, were under strict discipline by sister and some treated their charges similarly. My first memory is of waking up to a hard smack because I had my face covered by the bed clothes. Perhaps I should not complain because physically the treatment worked!

I've recently read the farming journal of John Whittingham from the 1700s and while it is a fairly unemotional account, reading between the lines shows how hard their lives were. I'm Generation X and I am in no doubt how easy we had it. My sympathies with your experiences. I spent a fair amount of time in various out patients but for things that weren't even noticed in earlier generations because people like me died young of something else. My blood pressure rises when I see the BP machine but because it squeezes so hard it hurts!

I am a Boomer of the '40's/50's. I think there are explanations for the unfeeling care in hospitals and institutions that cannot be blamed on individuals. The nursing establishment in the 50's was run by matrons and sisters of the previous generation when isolation, bed-rest and fresh-air in remote rural hospitals were the only treatments available when seriously ill. Antibiotics and vaccines were only just coming on the scene reducing the need for long hospitalizations for common illnesses of childhood. However, the old nursing regimes took some time to adapt, during which new knowledge of child development was being discovered. Keresley Hospital, where I was treated, was the starting place for cadet nurses many of whom might not have had experience in looking after younger siblings. Being in 'loco parentis' by the sisters and matron their lives were strictly controlled both on and off the wards. Many senior nursing staff were spinsters because of the depletion of the male generation by the First World War and had no experience of bringing up their own family. It was not until the Robertson's filming of children's reaction to hospitalisation and institutional care, and the publication of Bowlby's "Attachment Theory" in 1969, highlighting the damage done to children by impersonal care and separation from family, that changes were made to childcare in hospitals etc. Fortunately vaccination has completely removed the threat of polio, measles, mumps, diphtheria from causing severe infection requiring hospitalisation. Forum posts and autobiography ("What are Yer, Bleeder?") by "TomRymer" give a vivid account of stays in various Coventry hospitals. I believe our paths crossed briefly while in Gulson Hospital.

From the "Hillfields" posts by Lindatee & Dreamtime regarding 1/- and half crown for pocket money. Got me wondering if pocket money was still given to children and grand children. I don't ever remember getting money without earning it. From 13 or 14, I had a paper round (from Steve Holts in Canley Road) and a Saturday bread round with a Suttons driver friend of my dads.

I think I remember being paid 1d for each choir practice and 2d for each service, paid out at Christmas, a potential earning of £1.08p.a. Weddings were a bonus at 2s/6d a go but there were few of those at my church. Otherwise the bank of mum and dad gave 1/- a week rising to 10/- in the sixth form. I did get a casual job selling paint in a decorator's warehouse in Gosford Street but I can't remember the wages.

That was exactly my experience. That's how I was brought up - if you want money, earn it. It has stood me in good stead in life. Kept me nose clean, never had a criminal conviction - apart form the odd speeding offence when I was younger, but it was not my fault that the stupid speed limits on roads like the A45 had been erroneously set too low because of human error. They are even lower today! Now here's a funny thing. I got done for speeding in slow vehicles like a Morris van or an HA Viva whilst only going moderately above the fictitious speed limits. But on a motorbike, I was mentally on a race track. Speed limits did not exist in my mind. Every A to B journey had to be done in the quickest time. Recklessly fast, I was. Yet I never got done. Never even stopped and ticked off by the police. It often amazes me that I am still alive today. And what a small world. Living in Canley Road from the age of 12 until about 18, I used to do 3 rounds every morning, the Riddings, Rochester Road and the Dip (as we called Henry Parkes Rd). They all fitted into one bag, and followed each other. I woke at 0545 every morning without an alarm clock, was down at Jim Holt's at 0600 bagging up (Jim was out in his car doing the new Cannon Park estate round/s). I loved it, whatever the weather. By 0700 I was back home for breakfast before going to school or, later, work. Yes, I carried on after leaving school as I needed the money. I also did 5 rounds out of Jim's total of 8 rounds on a Sunday. That was a killer as the 5 separate bags were so heavy, with the broadsheets and all the supplement magazines. Jim used to live in the old family house in Canley Road, with his elderly mother until she died, and several cats. Jim was always spotlessly clean, shaven and immaculately dressed in a suit, whilst the house could best be described as a hovel. A positive health risk. When not attending to the paper shop business, Jim was away somewhere in the country at a racecourse. Northampton was a favourite venue. The shop at the front was an old style barber shop, run by another of Jim's brothers who lived elsewhere. As a young lad, sitting in the barber's chair, I often wondered what the advert on the top shelf was all about. It was for a family planning product, whatever that was. I was never asked if I needed anything for the weekend. I don't suppose they would have had spare parts for my bicycle, go-kart or radio. I think Jim's brother Steve lived at Wainbody. He would turn up at about 1630 in the week to collect his papers, which were all delivered to Jim's shoplet/house/hovel. I think his rounds were further over Canley like Prior Deram. I remember Steve having a noticeable Brummy accent. He once asked my mate "did yuh give the the girl 'er pipers?" In later years, Jim told me some thug (not the exact word Jim used) had bashed Steve over the lead with a lead cosh and stolen the weekly takings, after Steve had collected the weekly paper money from the houses of his rounds, in Gerrard Avenue, causing serious injury and meaning he could not work for a long time. I'm not sure what happened to Steve. But in the 80s, he used to supply papers and magazines to Warwick Uni before retiring. And he hated Jim's cats, and chased them off. But not if Jim was present.