Saturday evening

Well I went into the Dudley Guest hospital on November 3rd 1952 if, as you remember from my last blog, to have my tonsils out. I think if I remember rightly there were four other children in the ward, all seemed much younger than me. As soon as we got to the ward we had to get undressed and into bed and our mothers had to leave. There wasn't much to do I think there were a few books to look at but as I have already said the other children were much younger and did nothing much except cry understandably but it was very miserable for me. The next morning the nurses came round and gave us a pot will pills in. Now up to this time I had always had trouble swallowing tablets, although I must say I never really had taken many, but one by one they went to each child and if they didn't swallow the pills, with the tiniest drink of water they were offered, the nurse shouted at them. So when it came to my turn I was determined not to get a telling off so I pushed all the pills in together and drank the water down so fast that I thought I would choke but they were gone, what a relief. I'm sure there were only a couple of tablets in the pot the nurse gave us but at the time there seemed to be far more. The other children seemed to go to sleep quite quickly but I lay awake for what seemed like hours and one by one they came for them and one by one they were brought back still asleep. I was the last and by this time I was getting myself into a panic, so when they came for me I pretended to be asleep as they put me on a trolley and wheeled me out of the ward. I do remember them putting a mask across my face but nothing until I woke up with a very sore throat a few hours later. The other children all seemed to be awake, most of them crying again, but I suppose like me their throats were hurting. We all slept on and off through till the next morning when we were given cornflakes of all things, but eventually things improved and we got jelly later. That night was November 5th, bonfire night and the hospital had arranged a firework display for a little child who apparently had been in hospital for a long time and so we were able to watch through the windows at the show. I think we were allowed home the next day, what a blessing, I think I was even glad to think I would soon be able to go back to school. Still a few days later we had a bonfire and fireworks at home, as dad had said they would wait for me to get home before having our own November 5th.