Imagine having to contend with bats and bomber planes, not to mention 3 years in a hospital...
Courtesy of Pontefract and Castleford Express
Wartime hospital experience
TOWNVILLE man Terry Swift has submitted this picture of patients at the Marguerite Hepton Orthopaedic Hospital in Thorp Arch, near Leeds, taken about 1944.
Mr Swift, now 75, was a patient at the hospital for three years after being diagnosed with Perthes’ disease in his left hip when he was eight. The disease, which causes a limp and other symptoms, commonly affects children between the ages of four and eight, mostly boys.
Mr Swift said that during his stay he was given various treatments mostly consisting of bed rest and fresh air.
He added: “We were put out on a covered veranda on some winter nights and sometimes we woke up with snow on the end of the bed.”
As well as freezing nights the patients were also exposed to sunburn, visiting bats and bomber planes during wartime air raids.
The picture shows the youngsters on the veranda – Mr Swift is indicated with a cross.
He added: “As the years have gone by I’ve forgotton the lads’ names but they all came from surrounding districts.”
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