At one routine appointment at the Infirmary in 1953 – just before the Queen’s Coronation- the specialist said “We’d like to have a look at her in hospital”. She was 12 years old. Her mother took her in her school uniform to Wharfedale Children’s Hospital in Menston, an hour’s bus ride from Leeds after a 15 minute tram ride from home in Holbeck.
On arrival her strict instructions were do not get out of bed. For anything. And they left her there for 2 years. At the time of the 60th anniversary of the Queens coronation in 2013, she wept at the memory of her imprisonment. For several weeks, while everyone else was getting sentimental and nostalgic, she deliberately avoided watching the news on TV.
She never ever complained about her body not working the same way as other people, but she bitterly resented her 2-year sentence in hospital. That was cruel. Once, while the rest of us were crying our eyes out over a TV documentary about Anne Frank, she was entirely unaffected. “At least she had her family with her”.
There was a schoolroom at Wharfedale children’s hospital, but she was not able to get out of bed to attend. So, from top of the class at Cockburn to a hospital bed with 2 peripatetic infants’ teachers, she joined with 2 other older children listening to BBC Schools broadcasts. They came into her ward as she could not get out of bed.
A year into her imprisonment, one of the teachers brought in some slides which covered Pythagoras’ theorem. She soaked it up, and immediately invented Euclid. Well, maybe not, but she loved the old Greek geometrical theorems. It was all so obvious when you thought about it. And she did. She, unlike her husband, had a natural sense of proportion.
No outside visitors were allowed in, and certainly no children. Her youngest brother Philip remembers being taken with his parents on hospital visits. He was left outside to amuse himself, and was not allowed in. However, on Wednesdays the Methodist Minister ran a Sunday School class in her ward. He sometimes brought an assistant on his motorbike – her older brother John. She had no contact with her other 2 brothers for 2 years. Her parents came for 2 hours without fail each Saturday, and she learned to be happy – for them. While the other children were at school, she spent her time in bed playing through the Methodist Hymn book on her recorder. She also had a tune version of the Methodist Sunday School book, and had great difficulty knowing whether she should play the tune to
O Jesus we are well and strong
and we can run about and play
But there are children who are sick
And have to lie in bed all day.
She wasn’t w and s and she did h t l i b a d. She could not ever tell a lie. Even on her recorder.
After a little while in hospital not doing anything other than give regular blood samples, she was given gold injections. They were very painful. She did not let on to anyone. The Nazis were not going to make her crack.
One of the particular horrors she had to endure was Nurse Walsh. She was a small, hard, Irish nurse who knew that we are all here to suffer whatever the Good Lord throws at us. She was His willing assistant. Judy was unable to get out of bed, so she had to have blanket baths. 2 nurses did things to you. She never said what exactly they did, but Nurse Walsh administered these with a due regard for cleanliness, and none for comfort. Even towards the end of her life she could not get rid of Nurse Walsh, and wondered where she was now. She could manage adversity, but could never come to terms with cruelty.
For 2 years at the weekly visit by the consultant she thought I wonder if he’ll let me go home this week. Eventually she wrote home to say get me out of here. The Gestapo intercepted the letter and the Ward Sister marched round to her bed to ask her whether she seriously expected that they would send it on.
A fortnight later on their weekly Saturday visit, with no warning, her parents were asked whether they would like her back home. Well, yes. So she was dressed in the new school uniform she had worn when she arrived. Her mother had ensured that it was big enough to grow in to. Just as well. Having not got out of bed for 2 years, she walked the half mile to the bus stop. After the hour journey into Leeds, they got the tram home, where she met her 2 brothers whom she had not seen for the duration of her stay, and her Ministerial Assistant John.
There was no follow up after her treatment in hospital. She never knew what they were trying to do or whether they did it. She went to school for the first time since being locked up, joined a class of children a year younger than she was, and carried on as sort of normal. No one at school said anything, and that was OK. This experience led to a dread of anyone who thinks they know better than you do, and in particular to Health Professionals. She managed extraordinarily well until well after her retirement with minimal recourse to the NHS.
With the exception of one episode in 1967 when they tried out a novel approach to her condition. You never know whether they are going to capture you again. Or experiment on such an interesting body. You will have to wait until soon after her son Philip was born to find out about that one.
In about 1985 her husband was puzzled that she seemed to be still eaten up with her experiences such a long time ago. He offered her counselling. Come on, it’s all over now – it’s the future that matters. What is past is past. It’s no use crying over spilt milk … Surprisingly, however sound the advice, this did not work.
He then proposed that they should travel to the old hospital, and he would urinate on the wall, thus exorcising the ghost, so that she would be able to forget all about it. The experiment was a total failure. They drove out to Menston and she was unable to find the hospital. It had been in its own grounds with a long drive leading from the road.
Someone in a very superior house and half an acre of garden was clipping his hedge, and she asked him where the old Children’s Hospital was. He told her to wait there, went inside his house, and brought out a large aerial photograph of the area before … the hospital had been knocked down and replaced by a very up-market estate of large houses in their own grounds.
There on the photograph was the old hospital, and the house they had come upon was where the old gate house had been. In 1953 this same gate house was occupied by a man and his wife who had large Alsatian dogs which would go for you if you tried to escape. Well, that’s what the children believed. Her husband never got to know whether the exorcism would have worked. He still imagines it might have done.
jbrip 