FIRST AID, HEALTH

I was taken sick at School once - genuine sick, none of this 'after a hard night' business, that came later in life - and I was taken to the Staff Room. There I lay on a camp bed in the back right-hand corner (as you look into the room from the door) amidst the thick smog of cigarette and pipe smoke, waiting for someone to escort me home. Apart from an occasional exchange - "Are you all right Boy?" ..."Yes Thank You Sir" ... there was no-one to tend to an unwell pupil. What a pity that the lovely Anne wasn't there in her Nurse's uniform. (Andy)

I can confirm the state of medical care, since I suffered a similar fate on the day I accidentally spilt neat hydrochloric acid over 3 fingers of my right hand in an Oscar class. The smoke was worse than the pain of sheets of skin removing themselves from my hand! (Poor Oscar, he could do nothing more than circumnavigate the Chemistry Lab absolutely distraught, calling out to all boys "Don't Panic, Don't Panic" whilst the boys washed the wounded hand and took me to the Staff Room. (David Gregory)

I was taken sick at School once - genuine sick, none of this 'after a hard night' business, that came later in life - and I was taken to the Staff Room. There I lay on a camp bed in the back right-hand corner (as you look into the room from the door) amidst the thick smog of cigarette and pipe smoke, waiting for someone to escort me home. Apart from an occasional exchange - "Are you all right Boy?"... "Yes Thank You Sir" ... there was no-one to tend to an unwell pupil. What a pity that the lovely Anne wasn't there in her Nurse's uniform. (Andy)

The Health and Safety precautions and First Aid facilities *were* primitive, weren't they? This can't have been an isolated incident. Such precautions and facilities are heavily regulated in UK *workplaces* these days (if not always observed). Can any of our more recent pupils advise whether precautions and facilities in schools have improved? (Andy)

I was consigned to the examination type couch in the corner of the staff room once. It followed a thrashing at the hands of Daddy Scho for losing/forgetting my gym shoes. I got three strokes in front of the rest of the class who sat cross-legged on the floor of the gym and had to watch my punishment. Oddly enough the pain didn't register in my rear too much but as the day worn on I developed severe stomach pains in direct proportion to my increasing anger and sense of humiliation. I hadn't DONE anything and felt myself to be the victim of an act of unnecessary injustice. I ended up in Oldchurch Hospital and had to attend as an outpatient for all sorts of fruitless tests and investigations, probably wasting hundreds of £'s worth of N.H.S. funds. These days both the School and Daddy S would probably have been sued to the point of bankruptcy but this was over 35 years ago. We live in very different times. (Graham)

One of my friends, Kevin Lapwood, stayed with Chemistry and went to study it at Bristol University. On his first day he was thrown out of the lab because he didn't have a lab coat (well, Jet never told him to use one), and they considered his lab discipline so lax and unsafe they threatened to chuck him off the course. He had to explain that no one had ever shown him the correct behaviour and procedures, and they let him off with a stern warning to wise up and fast. The chemistry lab was very antiquated and would certainly never have got a safety certificate. Much like Jet himself! Any other stories about him? (Colin Newlyn)

John (Hawkins) Wrote: "What happened to sick boys? We had no sick room or matron to care. As a weakly 11-12 year old, taking the occasional turn for the worst during morning assembly was not unknown. The procedure was to be taken to the Common Room, where the milk of magnesia bottle was kept, and to be provided with a dose before being sent to the first period. It didn't seem to matter what the symptoms were. (Peter Cowling)

First Aid & Medical: I have 3 contributions during 1955-59:  I got stabbed by Peter Smith with a penknife. He was cutting through the strap of my satchel so I grabbed the knife hand by the wrist. In our struggle the hands parted and the knife cut me deeply from the wrist to the area between my left thumb and first finger.

We ran the the masters common room where Aggie and Birdbrain (Faithful) took it on themselves to try and bind the cut tightly with bandages. I think everyone was scared that there would be trouble if the incident got out. Well as you can imagine the wound did not heal well and I still have an 8 cm scar on my left hand. Today would be a trip to hospital for stitches and a full police report. Gee were we lucky back then.

The second incident was in Chemistry class. A test tube was being gently heated on a Bunsen burner while the students drew up close to observe. The test tube exploded and the contents hit me in the right eye. The teacher (forget his name) place my head under the running cold tap and asked Mike Walker to keep an eye on me. Teacher was more concerned with my whimpering than my health and could only tell me not to be a baby. I quickly quietened to avoid 200 lines of "In future I will not put my ugly face to close to the Bunsen burner which may explode and cause me pain and the teacher much grief". Nothing else was done.

And the third was the nurses visit held in the pr*f*cts room each year. We all stood in our shorts (under pants). One nurse pulls at the elastic on the front of my shorts and took a good look at my privates while placing the other hand underneath and said cough. I don't know weather that was part of her job and I was too young to enjoy it. One unlucky student was not like other boys in the private area and was taken away to be corrected. Lucky to be alive. (Brian Coan)

Patrick and I had little interest in sport but that had more to do with asthma and lack of encouragement than with disinclination. It is one criticism I have of an otherwise excellent school (and the older I get, the more I realise how good it was) that it didn't really know how to cope with asthmatics. I was simply sent to the library or made to perch on a little seat at the top of the climbing frame in the gym. I still have asthma, but liberation from its worst effects came in the late 60s with the invention of the Ventolin inhaler, a much better device than the thing with a large face mask I hated using at school. (Tom Little)

RLS and Medical Emergencies: The school, as I remember it, was not equipped for any kind of medical problem, asthma, dizzy spells, fainting etc. There was a first aid box in the Masters common room but that was about it. I don't think anyone had any kind of first aid training or anything, and, although I don't recall that anyone actually died while attending the school, it certainly is scary to look back and think what might have happened if a bad accident had occurred.

I was involved in brawl one lunch hour and had my eyebrow opened from end to end with one of those triangular wooden fence poles by Moley Morris who was a spiteful little bugger. Eyebrows bleed profusely as we all know, so, using a dirty handkerchief to stop the flow I walked with McGregor and Delmonte from behind the 4th XI pitch back to the Common Room and they knocked on the door. I think it was Bradshaw who answered the knock. He took one look and decided it needed to be stitched. McGregor was designated to take me immediately to Oldchurch Hospital on the bus. We were given some money for the fare and I still remember that trip, I felt really lousy what with the pain and the shock setting in. We arrived at the emergency room and McGregor left, after telling me to make sure I remembered he had stayed with me the whole afternoon! At about three thirty, some two hours after we had arrived I eventually had half a dozen stitches put in and was offered a lift home in one of those grey ambulances that they used for transporting elderly people to appointments etc. I remember arriving home about 5pm, walking through the door and upchucking in the kitchen sink, a shock reaction I suppose. When my mother came home I told her I had walked into a door and this was accepted. Being a vengeful bloke, about a week later I saw Moley reading a comic in room 12. I sat down at the desk next to him and when he was engrossed with the thing I took out my ever ready matches (I was an enthusiastic smoker when I was about 13) and lit the bottom of the paper. He didn't see it for a few moments and then the whole thing went up with a woosh! It frightened the bejesus out of him and although no blood was involved, I thought I certainly got my own back. That cut was a nuisance for years, any kind of punch or bang would cause it to open up again and it wasn't until I was about twenty that it finally healed up for good. (Mike Merry)

Things may have got a bit better by the early 60's. Derek Hardy was i/c first aid - and seemed to know what he was doing and to dispense compassion. I certainly took (and stayed with - is anything better than 2L? :-) sick and injured home and to Hospital. I also sense that Peter Benson, John Tydeman and Stan Smith were all first aid competent. (Bill Broderick)

I can vouch for the competence of Peter Benson on more than one occasion. First Aid administered by him had the added attraction of a ride home (depending on the level of incapacitation) in whatever sports car he was running at the time. I booked rides in the Berkeley 3-wheeler and both the red and the green MGs! John Tydeman was useful enough with the sticking plasters when bits of finger were detached by assorted chisels, saws and spokeshaves and another for whom I can write a personal testimonial was Harry Askew. No great shakes as a pole-vault coach but a reasonably dab hand at repairing the damage when things went diabolically wrong! (David Maltby)

I have to agree with Tom Little's complaints about the lack of appreciation and understanding when dealing with pupils who had disabilities. When I look back I remember that on one occasion you had an attack during a boxing match in the gym. On the run up to the boxing tournament a ring was erected in the gym and we were all forced to box. Scofield's attitude to your asthma seemed to be 'get on with it' or 'sit on top of the wall bars' (Bill Groves)