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Touch your collar, never swallow, never catch the fever.......
This was the familiar chant of inner city children, who played in Bristol streets during the early 1940's, wrote Elaine Adams.
In the spring of 1945 I was taken by ambulance car to Ham Green Isolation Hospital, having caught the dreaded Scarlet Fever. At the tender age of 5 years, I was plucked from all that was familiar to face a completely different world without even the support of a family member.
There were no special concessions in those days, mothers were needed by their other children or for their wartime occupation, so therefore the young had to face such enforced separations bravely.
On arrival at the hospital I was taken to be bathed. The sight of the gleaming, white bath complete with shiny taps quite overwhelmed me as I was used to a Saturday night scrub in the tin bath, which my sister always shared.
Suddenly the nurse poured some yellow liquid into the water and even that turned white. 'It's all right,' she said, "It's only to make the spots better.'
Once thoroughly disinfected, I was put to bed in the girls' ward, which was separated from the boys by the waiting and collection area. Life on the wards followed a strict routine. I was woken at appointed times of the day and night to be examined or given medicine.
In the early days of the illness the small patients did not object to the quiet orderliness of sleeping all day in one of the metal beds that were placed with precision at equidistant intervals, on each side of the long rectangular room.
As part of the recovery process, the children were eventually expected to spend most of the day in the fresh air, only returning to the ward at specified times. On one such day, I caught sight of a prefabricated unit with the letters TB whitewashed on the entrance.
All the windows were open, so out of sheer curiosity I climbed onto one of the sills. Looking inside I saw rows of beds, just like in my own ward, but all of these were occupied by men.
'Have you got to stay in bed all the time?' was my first question to the startled patient lying beneath my gaze. My innocent chatter soon aroused the interest of those around him and I began to enjoy the attention.
Just as things were going well, an irate nurse spotted the unscheduled light entertainment. Hastily, Scarlet Fever and Tuberculosis were distanced. Years later, I wondered whether I had inadvertently infected any of those men.
The day of my discharge eventually arrived and I was duly taken by a nurse to be disinfected once again. To get to the bathroom it was necessary to pass through the boys' ward and a very sorry spectacle met my eyes. A rather resentful bee had just been extracted from one lad's ear and it was being placed in a white enamel basin.
After the delight of the warm bath I was taken to the collection area where my mother was waiting. Minutes later we were making our way to the city centre on the 'country bus'.
When we arrived at our street I couldn't believe my eyes.....tables laden with sandwiches, jellies and suchlike seemed to stretch as far as my eyes could see. There was music, chatter and laughter. Suddenly I was lifted onto one of the chairs...
'Eat up love, it'll make you into a big strong girl,' said Auntie Dawn.
Perhaps I may have thought that the party was in my honour, but in truth it was VE Day and a time for a much greater celebration.
Elaine Adams, 2002
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