CHILDHOOD ILLNESSES August 2017
by Sylvia Shopland nee Deakin
Chicken pox, whooping cough, English and German measles, and mumps were a rite of passage in the life of young families in the 1940's.
Then there were the isolation hospital diseases, which were so dreaded ? these were diphtheria, meningitis, scarlet fever, TB and Infantile Paralysis. These could mean spending months in hospital for the disease to run it?s course. There was infantile paralysis during this period, and schools and pools were closed to reduce the rate of infection. Many people of our age still walk with a limp, having one leg shorter than the other as a result of infantile paralysis.
My story is of measles, chicken pox and whooping cough. We were four children in the house .. my sister Minnie and I, and our two cousins Rachel and Helen. Their house in South London had been hit during an air raid, so they and Auntie Margaret spent eighteen months living with us at Stroud.
One by one we went down with chicken pox, so the living room became the hospital ward where we had beds on the sofa, the bed settee and the two easy chairs pushed together. This saved a lot of running up and down stairs, also the fire could be kept going to keep us warm.
Then we came down with measles, and when we finally recovered from that one of us caught whooping cough! As I was asthmatic, the doctor recommended that I go to a friend?s house to avoid contact.
I remember walking up the hill from our house (Stroud was all hills), with Mum and Dad and seeing signs on gateways saying ?No Hawkers No Circulars No gypsies?. I stayed with these friends for about ten days, then came home… and of course got whooping cough.
Ray's memory is of taking the 11+ exam which decided which level of schooling you were eligible for, and getting meningitis the day after. Meningitis was a disease which warranted isolation, so Ray was taken off to hospital where he stayed for three months. Initially he had to stay in bed lying down, and as the ward was divided by glass walls the nurses could see if anyone sat up! The girl in the next bed had polio, and was in a cast for a long time. When she needed treatment it hurt so much that she screamed, and Ray can still remember that vividly.
Imagine being in hospital for three months, and having not one visitor, and even if there was a visitor communication was through a glass wall. What would you do all day lying on your back when there was no TV, probably no radio to listen to, and no one to talk with?
George Deakin - Sylvia’s thoughts
By Sylvia Shopland 2022
“If a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing well”
My early memories of Dad were when we lived at Stroud in Gloucestershire. Dad taught at the local Technical College, and acquired the nickname “Chalky” among the students because of his tendency to end the day covered in chalk dust from the blackboard.. He taught subjects like draughting and strength of materials to students who came from both Stroud and the surrounding areas. A lot of the teaching was night school, so he must have had free time during the day.
The College was in a Victorian building which also housed the Stroud Museum, a typical fusty but fascinating collection of objects for that time.
During the war bus services were reduced and some of the students had to walk a long way along unlit country roads.. At night they would untuck their shirt tail and let the white shirt show at the back so that they could be seen more easily in the dark. This was called a ‘Dursley lantern’.
Dad was invited to be a member of the Stroud Rotary Club, and took an active part in Rotary wherever he lived. I have a fond memory of the club putting on a Christmas show, “Swan Lake” with Dad and the other men dressed up in tutus.
We had a large garden which Dad tended carefully and productively. He grew all his own seedlings, and each year the Suttons Seed Catalogue was carefully scanned to make decisions for the following year’s plantings. Trees and soft fruit canes came wrapped in hessian, to be collected from the railway station. During the war he dug up a lawn to produce more vegetables.
In the cellar Dad had his workshop where he mended our shoes using a cast iron cobbler’s anvil with three foot sizes. This looked rather like the symbol on the Isle of Man flag.
The main use of the cellar was for coal to heat our water. Coal was delivered from sacks down through a hatch beside our house, and was always very
dusty. We must also have stored vegetables like carrots and potatoes from the garden there as it was always the same temperature winter and summer. Apples were carefully checked for bird pecks and then wrapped in newspaper and stored in boxes on the landing by the attic – notoriously cold rooms where Minnie had her bedroom, and also any visitors. Frost on the inside of the window panes was a normal winter occurrence.
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In the war, the cellar must have been our air raid shelter, though I have no memory of going down there for that reason. We were fortunate to be away from the bombing most of the time.
Dad was a quiet man, not given to emotional outbursts, but we knew when he was cross or didn’t approve of something as his lips went thin. He and Mum rarely acted without consulting the other, so it was hard for us to get round them to have our own way.
Having lived and worked in France, and then marrying Mum who was French, Dad was bilingual and when they didn’t want others to understand what they were saying they spoke in French. Phrases like “Pas devant les enfants” were picked up quickly by Minnie and me, raising our curiosity!
Mum and Dad collected butterflies and moths, which were plentiful in those pre-pesticide days. We took a bus to various parts of the Cotswolds, and enjoyed being in the countryside. Butterflies were caught in a big net, then carefully placed in a container with something to kill them quickly (formaldehyde?). When we got home they were mounted in boxes an named. A wonderful collection which helped Minnie and I appreciate the beauty of nature (not an approved pastime now, though). I believe this collection must have gone to the Stroud Museum as we didn’t have them at Horsham.
The move to Christ’s Hospital, near Horsham, Sussex, in 1947 meant that Dad returned to his old school as Head of Department of the Manual Training School. The day we went into his office he was horrified to find a collection of canes behind a cupboard - I suspect that these were put to use in our garden. As far as I remember any smacking was done by Mum, not Dad.
Dad enjoyed learning all the skills taught at the school, and became proficient in all of them. Carpentry, metalwork, bookbinding, forge, basketry, all were conquered, both for his own satisfaction and so that he could take a class where necessary.
Once again the garden was his main hobby, and we had six chickens which we inherited from the previous resident of the house . Dad didn’t realise that the wings needed clipping, only to find six chickens roosting up an oak tree.
Mum and Dad became members of the Horsham Natural History Society, and we went on many trips to the river valleys and the Downs (hills) of Sussex. With the advent of insecticides there were far fewer butterflies, and bird watching was the new hobby. I remember Dad’s delight when a hoopoe was seen on the playing field next to our house. Also a mad dash down to a sand quarry near the coast as bee eaters had been seen there. Yes, we did see them coming and going to their nests in holes in the cliff of sandstone.
At Horsham a member of the women’s side of Rotary, Inner Wheel, offered to teach other members to play bridge. This was no mere card game, but serious stuff and they enjoyed most of their battles on the card table.
Mum and Dad realised that their savings from selling the Stroud house and moving to a school house (part of salary) were eroding due to inflation, and they were concerned about saving enough money for retirement. They both liked travelling, and experiencing different cultures, so an overseas job beckoned. Dad first applied for a job in the Bahamas, then one in Sarawak.
On finding that another Rotarian, head of Horsham Tech had also applied for the Bahamas job he pursued the chance to go to Sarawak, and in early January 1958 they went on their new adventure to the tropics. Here he became Head of Technical Education, a new position made to widen the educational opportunities in the colony. He was based in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak. His brief was to improve courses in the secretarial sector, in the marine industry, and to introduce technology to schools throughout the country. This meant considering applications for positions as woodwork and metalwork teachers from overseas in the first place, as well as those who could improve the shorthand and typing taught in schools. Dad travelled throughout Sarawak, which including long river trips to the ulu (hinterland), these being made by powered boats of various types, depending on the state of the river. Often he stayed the night with the District Officer – an expat who ruled over the local area as representative of the Colonial Office. From here he would visit the local schools and long houses. Dad learned Malay as this was the working language for the diverse communities of Chinese, Malay, Indian, Dayak, and many other smaller groups living in the country.
After six years in Sarawak, Dad took a job in Brunei, the oil rich state next to Sarawak. Here he did similar work, initiating and extending technical education through the state. Mum worked with the Red Cross, and she supervised help with a cholera (?) epidemic.
On retirement Mum and Dad returned to New Zealand, having previously taken a holiday in Auckland. Minnie and Martin were planning to emigrate to New Zealand, as were Martin’s parents. While on holiday in Auckland, they bought a house for their retirement, and lived in Papatoetoe, later building a new house on Ray and Sylvia’s section at Mangere East.
WORK IN PROGRESS
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This page last modified on Thursday, 29 March, 2022