Infant school in the Thirties; health treatments

BBC Cumbria bus on behalf of Mr Ian Robertson's memory of 1st January 1932 - 31st December 1932

Disease was plentiful in the Thirties lots of children had Impetigo which was a skin complaint. The treatment was that they had to be covered all over in a blue ointment. I don’t know whether it was a cure or a sign to keep well away.

The nurse was a regular visitor to the school. We all had to line up in single file, and one by one she would look at our fingernails, behind our ears, and in our hair looking for nits and head lice after your head had suffered a good scraping with a small tooth comb.

Every day we all had to take a large spoon to school and in the morning just before playtime we got a large spoonful of malt whether we liked it or not. It was supposed to be good for you, but not so good for your clothes, by the time you had tried to swallow it. Half of the malt ran down your jumper. Glad to say that idea didn’t last for very long.

After the malt saga we went down to the clinic in Sandhills Lane.
We were all given a pair of dark glasses to wear and we stood stripped to the waist round a large lamp the height of the ceiling. It had iron railings round in case we ventured too near.

Carbon rods were fed into the lamp. Two of the rods were made to arc together to give out an intense light. We were made to turn round in different directions for several times, then it was switched off and ready for the next circle of kids. This was called Sunray treatment. It was another plan to make you fit and healthy.
I always made my own way back from the Infants school but on this particular day seeing that the swing field was next door to the school I decided it was time for me to have a few goes on the swings and see-saw.

Then off home the long home down Scotch Street and stand in the tannery doors and watch the men working with all the slimy and smelly hides doing all sorts of things with them scraping them and putting them into big tanks.

It was an added bonus if I happened to see a rat.

The thing that I did see was my Mother coming up the hill not in a very good mood with me for being late from school and not going straight home. Needless to say I was banned never to go near the Tan Yard ever again, and always to come straight home from school.

One of the worst moments was when all of the school marched down to the clinic.

Thinking we were going to some kind of entertainment all standing in along queue until we heard the crying and shouting from the room above.

We were all in a line to have our Diphtheria injections.

We were all infants with no parents for comfort and no warning.
The clinic was in an uproar with children screaming and running about in mad panic. That’s one of the memories of my school days I will never forget. It was enough to put you off needles for the rest of your life.

This memory was submitted to the Memoryshare web service by the BBC Cumbria Bus Team on behalf of Mr Ian Robertson and has been added to the site with the author’s permission.

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This memory was added 23rd November 2007

Keywords: Whitehaven Cumbria bbc cumbria diphtheria impetigo infant school

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