On Sunday, the National Health Service was 50 years old. We asked for your early memories of the NHS and over the next few weeks, we'll be featuring some of your fascinating letters.
Mr J Morse, from Cranbrook Road, Thornton Heath, writes: "Your request for memories of Waddon Hospital prompts me to write, as I spent two periods there in my childhood.
"Firstly in about 1936/7 as a lad of six or seven, I spent six weeks there having been found to have Scarlet Fever and measles together. The children's wards were built rather like bungalows with individual glazed rooms running back-to-back, each room opening out onto a veranda, subject to whatever the elements had to offer!
"I had no contact with any other patients and absolutely no visitors, not even one's parents. My memories are of nurses in the starched aprons and caps of the time, scurrying about their tasks and washing their hands in washbasins out on the veranda after each visit to a child.
"The food was pretty dreadful - as it was in Mayday itself - and typically would consist of a thin soup, rather like chicken noodle without the noodles, followed by slices of fatty lamb, nearly cold with large boiled potatoes and horrid watery cabbage. Present day Mayday food is like the Savoy by comparison!
"My only contact with parents was by letter accompanying the eagerly-awaited Film Fun comic, and I seem to remember receiving the occasional egg with my name pencilled on it which the nurses would boil as a special tea-time treat. I don't know how the eggs arrived. They were presumably left at the gate since entry to the hospital, and indeed to Mayday itself, was more closely controlled - by a gatekeeper - than is the case nowadays.
"I remember very clearly that the ambulance sent by the `fever hospital' was different to that from the other hospitals, being a very dark green in colour, with black windows and a white roof whereas the others, I believe, were a more cheerful pale grey.
"When the time came at last for me to go home, I was collected by my mother in a hire car from Mr Alec West's garage in Brigstock Road (he also had horse-drawn carriages for hire outside Thornton Heath Station). I would have been brought to her however - she would not have been allowed to approach the ward.
"Another aspect of these highly infectious diseases, of course, was that after the patient had been carted off, the borough health authorities descended to fumigate the home and destroy books etc."
He continues: "The second time I landed in Waddon was in April 1939 when, falling off my cycle, I broke my leg and was taken in Mayday. Two days later I was discovered to have Chicken Pox and was transferred immediately to Waddon for a three-week stay, returning to Mayday around my 10th birthday.
"Many years later - in 1960 - my daughter, then a baby, was admitted to the self-same ward that I had been in, being suspected of having contracted Whooping Cough from her elder brother. By then though, the routine was much more relaxed and we were able to visit without restriction.
"Back in the 1930s, Purley Way was a very quiet road and the hospital, situated as it was at the end of a lonely lane running alongside the railway line, seemed to a young lad about as far remote as the far side of the moon!"
Mr Morse adds: "As a parting shot, you might be interested to know that the smell from the gasworks that then existed at the southern end of the bridge was thought to be beneficial to those suffering from coughs and chesty complaints and it was said that some mothers took their children to stand outside and inhale the outdoors!"
r If you have memories of Croydon's heritage, write to: Gary Taphouse, Heritage, Croydon Guardian, Guardian House, Sandiford Road, Sutton, Surrey SM3 9RN.
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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