A Different Summer Holiday

A Different Summer Holiday

Summer holidays (vacations) were such an exciting event for me as a child. We lived in the country where we were free to roam and explore wherever we wished and the thought of two months with nothing much else to do gave me a heady feeling each June. There were fields and woods and the beach nearby and our bicycles to ride. My brother and I took long walks with our mother and exploratory bike rides, often for miles, taking picnic lunches.

The last day of school the year that I was eleven was one such day. School closed early so I was home for lunch. I always rode my bike to school, a trip of just over 2 miles each way. Some time during that afternoon I was on the sofa in our small living room and began to feel extremely tired. I lay down on the sofa and became terribly cold, but was unable to move. Eventually my mother came into the room and found me. She was quite annoyed to find me almost unresponsive, except for the words "Cold, cold". She managed to get me upstairs to bed and in the morning called the doctor. Doctors in England, at least in those days, made house calls if you were ill. Our doctor was a woman, Dr. Drown. At some point she made the diagnosis that I had viral pneumonia.

I felt terribly ill and had a very high fever. If I had been able to think I would have wondered if I would die. The only time I felt better was when my mother put her hands on me. Since then if someone is very ill I always make a point of laying my hands on them. I was unable to eat and could only take small sips of liquid. Unfortunately I was allergic to penicillin so a medicine known as M&B was prescribed but did no good. I wasn't good at swallowing pills so this was prescribed in liquid form. It was white and in an attempt to make it more palatable my mother would coat the spoon in raspberry jam. For years after I recovered I could not eat raspberry jam. I recall she had a difficult time getting me to swallow it anyway.

I am not sure how long I suffered, but at least a week. Then it was decided that I would be put in hospital so that I could take a new medication, erythromycin. It had been developed in the United States but at that point only available in England under strict supervision. An ambulance arrived and two men put me on a stretcher and carried me down to the road. Just as we arrived at the front gate I saw my friend, Patricia Elliott, standing near, holding her bicycle and her mouth open ! She had not known I was ill and was shocked to see me, especially as I was much thinner and whiter after so many days of extreme illness. I don't believe I acknowledged her in any way, I was feeling too bad.

Fortunately the erythromycin worked almost immediately. I was put in a bed at the end of a long ward. There must have been about 20 beds in the ward and at least one nurse was in attendance at all times, mostly sitting at a desk by the entrance. The end where I had my bed had glass windows separating us from the other beds and was almost like a separate room. I think there were 3 or 4 other patients in that area. One was a girl a few years older than I. I remember she talked about having her period, which I thought very peculiar as to me it was something one didn't publicize ! I was not well enough to get up but after a few days I could sit up and since I was an active child I would wriggle about, so gradually regained some strength.

Hospitals in England in those days served afternoon tea and snacks to both patients and visitors about 4 p.m. Visiting hours were restricted to about an hour and two people, and I was always so thrilled to see my mother. My brother came with her once. One afternoon a friend, another Patricia but with the last name of Bingham, came to see me instead and I was so disappointed it wasn't my mother, even though I didn't let on. I expect she was glad of a break though, since she had to ride her bike or take the bus to see me and it was quite a few miles.

After a week I was taken in another ambulance to a convalescent hospital in my hometown of Goring. This was quite near our house and was a converted mansion with beautiful grounds. My room was on the ground floor and looked out over a sloping lawn with a small lake at the end. There was one other person in my room, which had most likely been a large living room in its past. Before it's conversion to a hospital my brother and I had often played on the grounds as the building had been empty for many years. We especially liked the lake as it had small islands in the middle. One of them had a fallen tree across to it, so we could climb over. The house had previously been the home of the wealthy Keymer family. Alice and Nora Keymer were two of the owners and our street was Keymer Crescent, and the next street over was Alinora Avenue, a contraction of the two names. Just behind the house was a large field where the yearly circus would pitch tents and at night we could hear the lions roaring as we lay in bed

I was still terribly weak and ill and the first time I was allowed out of bed all I could do was sit in a reclining chair by the window, where I promptly fell asleep. I was in that hospital for another week and then taken home - presumably by ambulance as we had no car, though I don't recall that part. It took me some months to regain all the weight I had lost. I remember my mother making the comment that I looked like I had come out of concentration camp. Unfortunately I wasn't really well enough to enjoy the rest of the summer but was able to go back to school in September!