I was in a shop this week and an old lady in front of me was talking about 'The good old days,' and how she wished it was still like it was. And I smiled to myself. Because that afternoon I had been putting the finishing touches to a chapter of a book I have been writing concerning life after the war. (I was born in 1939.) I want my children to know what it was really like, warts and all.
'We were in the main healthy if undernourished, though every conceivable malady or affliction was never far away. Like many other children I suffered the horrors of several, all debilitating, and some embarrassing.
Painful puss filled boils, often on the neck where clothing rubbed, the result of an unhealthy diet. Plus sties, an equally painful inflammation of the glands that lie along the edge of the eyelid. Each a sore red swelling with a head of white, painful itching treated, not always successfully by the application of greasy Golden Eye Ointment. Chicken pox and measles would travel through the village, and, on arrival, create anxious times for all who had been in contact with the first victims for the next three weeks.
Red sore patches and yellow oozing blisters would herald the arrival of impetigo, shared towels in infant and junior school meant shared impetigo.
Head lice too were rife, tiny wingless insects very capable of moving from school desk to school desk and then from friend to friend. The discovery of tiny greyish white eggs at an early stage preferable to the extreme itching that signified the eggs had hatched and the lice rife. Plus ringworm, sore, itchy and infectious, a fungus of distinctive red rings often caught from the animals ever present in village life. All irritating conditions but seldom life threatening. The same could not be said of other sicknesses and ailments prevalent in the village and surrounding area.
Whooping cough, particularly feared by parents of children under the age of one, contagious and dangerous. The ‘whooping’ sound emitting as those afflicted breathed in, distressing to victim and parent alike. Plus diphtheria, at least equally distressing. An airborne bacterium that can lead to severe breathing problems, paralysis, heart failure and death.
Scarlet fever, a not uncommon childhood illness, a distinctive, very infectious streptococcal bacteria often needing isolation in hospitals provided for the purpose if it was to be contained and its effects limited.
One child in the village distinctly remembered sitting on the pavement playing snobs, also sometimes called jacks, a pastime popular with many. An innocuous grazed finger caused by contact with the pavement led to isolation in nearby Draycott Hospital and eight weeks incarceration, the result of contracting Scarlet Fever. Another village child was in the same hospital for the same illness. Her smaller sister also contacted the disease, seemingly from innocuously kissing her hand whilst visiting. Each instance of infection distressing but not surprising.
Poliomyelitis, also called polio. A dangerous condition causing weakness, paralysis and serious breathing problems; often with fatal results. So serious that many who survived inherited weaknesses in an arm or leg for the rest of their lives. A contagious disease that was particularly rife when bathing in canals and pools was practised ignorant of and oblivious to the dangers inherent in such seemingly innocent pastimes.
One or two of the village children wore callipers, a reminder that Ockbrook was no more immune from the likes of polio or the condition known as club foot than any other post war village.
Also not unknown were neck goitres, a condition borne of an iodine deficiency, easily prevented in more enlightened times, so prevalent in Derbyshire that it was nicknamed ‘Derbyshire Neck’.
There were also at least two individuals who were termed mongol, (much later more sympathetically termed Downs Syndrome) and at least two persons termed ‘deaf and dumb’. Again a misnomer as the deaf persons in question were not necessarily mute, again indicative of less understanding times. Plus there were also present in the village one or two who were minus limbs due to accidents plus others with all manner of mental incapacity and instability, often hidden behind closed doors. Most afflictions treated with sympathy for village life tended to reflect in the main the idea that ‘You look after your own’. '
Lest people think we were unhappy, we we not, partly because we we knew of nothing else.
A sombre post indeed. So to cheer everyone up, a taste of the humour of the day. Suggesting that at times they were indeed 'The good old days.'
'We were in the main healthy if undernourished, though every conceivable malady or affliction was never far away. Like many other children I suffered the horrors of several, all debilitating, and some embarrassing.
Painful puss filled boils, often on the neck where clothing rubbed, the result of an unhealthy diet. Plus sties, an equally painful inflammation of the glands that lie along the edge of the eyelid. Each a sore red swelling with a head of white, painful itching treated, not always successfully by the application of greasy Golden Eye Ointment. Chicken pox and measles would travel through the village, and, on arrival, create anxious times for all who had been in contact with the first victims for the next three weeks.
Red sore patches and yellow oozing blisters would herald the arrival of impetigo, shared towels in infant and junior school meant shared impetigo.
Head lice too were rife, tiny wingless insects very capable of moving from school desk to school desk and then from friend to friend. The discovery of tiny greyish white eggs at an early stage preferable to the extreme itching that signified the eggs had hatched and the lice rife. Plus ringworm, sore, itchy and infectious, a fungus of distinctive red rings often caught from the animals ever present in village life. All irritating conditions but seldom life threatening. The same could not be said of other sicknesses and ailments prevalent in the village and surrounding area.
Whooping cough, particularly feared by parents of children under the age of one, contagious and dangerous. The ‘whooping’ sound emitting as those afflicted breathed in, distressing to victim and parent alike. Plus diphtheria, at least equally distressing. An airborne bacterium that can lead to severe breathing problems, paralysis, heart failure and death.
Scarlet fever, a not uncommon childhood illness, a distinctive, very infectious streptococcal bacteria often needing isolation in hospitals provided for the purpose if it was to be contained and its effects limited.
One child in the village distinctly remembered sitting on the pavement playing snobs, also sometimes called jacks, a pastime popular with many. An innocuous grazed finger caused by contact with the pavement led to isolation in nearby Draycott Hospital and eight weeks incarceration, the result of contracting Scarlet Fever. Another village child was in the same hospital for the same illness. Her smaller sister also contacted the disease, seemingly from innocuously kissing her hand whilst visiting. Each instance of infection distressing but not surprising.
Poliomyelitis, also called polio. A dangerous condition causing weakness, paralysis and serious breathing problems; often with fatal results. So serious that many who survived inherited weaknesses in an arm or leg for the rest of their lives. A contagious disease that was particularly rife when bathing in canals and pools was practised ignorant of and oblivious to the dangers inherent in such seemingly innocent pastimes.
One or two of the village children wore callipers, a reminder that Ockbrook was no more immune from the likes of polio or the condition known as club foot than any other post war village.
Also not unknown were neck goitres, a condition borne of an iodine deficiency, easily prevented in more enlightened times, so prevalent in Derbyshire that it was nicknamed ‘Derbyshire Neck’.
There were also at least two individuals who were termed mongol, (much later more sympathetically termed Downs Syndrome) and at least two persons termed ‘deaf and dumb’. Again a misnomer as the deaf persons in question were not necessarily mute, again indicative of less understanding times. Plus there were also present in the village one or two who were minus limbs due to accidents plus others with all manner of mental incapacity and instability, often hidden behind closed doors. Most afflictions treated with sympathy for village life tended to reflect in the main the idea that ‘You look after your own’. '
Lest people think we were unhappy, we we not, partly because we we knew of nothing else.
A sombre post indeed. So to cheer everyone up, a taste of the humour of the day. Suggesting that at times they were indeed 'The good old days.'
