Tracing the Family Doctor from your childhood? A different NHS in the 1940s!

[Top-of-the-hill]

  When I was a child we had "Old Dr Bellamy" and "Young Dr Bellamy". I believe the father, and possibly both, were "panel" doctors for the local mine workers? Someone else may know more about that. Surgeries for our end of the practice were held in part of a tiny cottage in the next village. After I married in 1968 and moved away, our new doctor still held surgeries in one room of a house in one village, and in his own house in another village, and still on the "turn up and wait" arrangement.
   I remember going to him for an ante-natal visit at his home surgery, and I think I must have gone straight from work, (about 12 miles by bus). Afterwards he drove me home!

[Viktoria]

Our Dr. Was a lovely man,a gentle Scottish accent, he called once when I  very ill, I used to have tonsillitis very badly .
He made a house call, prescribed Linctus and aspirin .
I was not  improving so my mother called the surgery to hear he had died ,he was 83.
A new young Dr .called ,a Polish Dr, this would be 1950’s - 1953 - he too was lovely but other medicine-.might even have been Penicillin ,I made a good recovery but he said if in future  I was  ever asked had I had Rheumatic Fever to relate the illness and his comments that he felt I might have as all my joints ached and my skin flaked off.
Blood tests were not common then.
Well I lasted until 2009 and at 72 had a massive heart attack , undiagnosed by GP, I went for four days without treatment as it was atypical .
I am still here although with impairment which is manifesting itself now .
But what a shame , wonder what the outcome  would have been  been had I been hospitalised with the tonsillitis or immediately after the heart attack .
To have one incompetent Dr is a pity but TWO —— ridiculous !!!
However I am in heart failure now almost 15 years after but it can be managed .
Our Dr. in Belgium was amazing .
I was bitten by a feral cat in a Rabies area, nearly had a breakdown ,well a dreadful death and I had two boys and a very young baby girl .
He got me through that , I am eternally grateful.
He sadly died last year.
A hard act to follow, but these days I find Drs very approachable and friendly.
That is when you actually manage to get an appointment,not their fault is it.
Viktoria.

[fiddlerslass]

My Dr when I was a child was Dr William Cherry, known as Bill, who sadly died in 2017 according to an obituary in the BMJ. He was a lovely man who went to the trouble of getting advice from the government on the occasion when I was bitten by a neighbour 's dog that had just come out of quarantine for rabies. This was back in the 1970's . The neighbours had just retired from the Police service in the Seychelles and had built a big compound in their back garden for the 2 ex police dogs they brought back with them. I was playing outside with a friend and someone left the compound door open and the dogs came bounding out. Needless to say I am now afraid of dogs!! But at least I did not need any rabies injections and was just treated with precautionary antibiotics.

Here is an article about Dr Cherry's retirement

http://teesdalemercuryarchive.org/pdf/1987/September-16/September-16-1987-01.pdf#search=%22bill%20cherry%22

[Gillg]

Many of my childhood doctors seem to have come from Scotland or Ireland.  I do remember Dr Kelly (Ireland), though I was very cross with him when I was 10 for referring me to the hospital to have my sinuses washed out, cross because I was probably very frightened at the time at the idea of going to a hospital. 

We would turn up at the surgery and sit in a crowded room full of sick people (and cigarette smoke), the doctor would sit at his desk next to a scary skeleton, cheerfully smoking a cigarette or a pipe.  Doctors would happily make home visits for all kinds of illnesses - do they do that nowadays?

The doctor who saw my mother through a difficult pregnancy was also Irish, a woman named Snodgrass.  She was a great fan of Dr Truby King and his baby care methods, my mother later told me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truby_King . 

[HughC]

It was a different NHS in 1953, too.  My father told the story of how the clock in the hall struck midnight, my brother was born, and the doctor looked at his watch and insisted it was still a minute to 12.  Or perhaps I've got the order wrong, but anyway there was an argument about which date to register the birth with.

I doubt you'd get a GP to attend a home birth in the middle of the night now.
And 18 months later he came to the house to give us all our jabs, as we were about to travel to Egypt to join Dad who was in the army and stationed there.  I remember running to hide at the other end of the garden (coward!).

[Viktoria]

Fiddler’s Lass, in 1976 a dog in quarantine gad been there the required time
and was reunited with their family .
It bit someone and was diagnosed with Rabies.
Wholesale panic hit England, much wildlife was destroyed even birds .
Dogs in the quarantine kennels destroyed .

We were returning from Belgium,the quarantine was extended to nine months from six,no visits were allowed.
Our dog would have to be picked up on board the ship ,not allowed to even walk on the quay, the van had to drive on board ( it was a roro ship, ( roll on roll off) all was focused on the dog whilst we a family of five and all our furniture etc were of no importance .
In addition the cost!£1,000 a month for nine months for a dog who would be bereft, and could be destroyed if any dog near its cage developed rabies during the extended quarantine period, without us being consulted.
We were not allowed to visit and it was in North Yorkshire .

So sadly our lovely dog had to be put to sleep .
We had to buy a house and start all over again and the quarantine costs were as much as a house in those far off days .

I still feel guilty.
Viktoria.

[Jebber]

I know exactly how you feel Viktoria, we had exactly the same thing with our cat on moving back from Berlin. When we got back from the vet my husband and I both sat and wept. We had sent our sons to the pictures so they didn't know what we were doing.

Apart from a budgerigar, we had always refused them a pet because of the problem moving between countries every two or three years. Then one day boys rescued a kitten when the mother, a stray and her two other kittens had died. We didn't expect ours to survive, his eyes were only just open, but I fed him with an eye dropper every hour and kept him in my apron pocket during the day for warmth, at night he slept in my fur hat turned inside out, in a box by the bed. I have never got up so many times in the night as I did to feed him.

Against all the odds he thrived and grew into the most loving and playful cat. In the evenings he would curl up on my lap and the bird used to love to sit on his head and nibble his ears. Visitors couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It was the most unlikely sight and gave us many a laugh.

We had no more pets until we were back in England permanently.

[Viktoria]

Yes, our dog was lovely, could play the piano!
Well stood on her back legs with front paws on the keyboard and walked from bass keys to treble and back again,plink plonk .
She joined my daughter when practising .
It was hard ,she was young and healthy,not like releasing an old ill dog from suffering.
We bought her on impulse, one morning after Church we went to the animal market where believe it or not there were lion cubs for sale ,exotic birds ,kittens and chickens etc.
She sat with her paws crossed,a Black and Tan version of a border collie ,about eight weeks old .
She had a little mark on her mouth which made her look as if she had heard some talk of which she did not approve ,we called her  Prudence,- well Pru .
But the cost was impossible and for her to be there nine months with the possibility there might be another dog  in a cage close to hers which developed rabies so she would have to be put to sleep also ,after months of paying ,no as far as it could be it was as kind as possible with me holding her
and talking to her ,” walkies, we’ll go walkies ,”a flicker of a wagged tail and nothing more.
I am in tears now.
Oh dear how they pull at our heart strings .
Viktoria.
P.S is there a rescue service for goldfish?
I really can’t keep up my little pond anymore ,despite all my efforts, filters aerators etc it goes green so quickly ,too much sunshine, but the fish are quite tame ,and come to the corner where I feed them when I tap on the rim.
It is a big job clearing it out . I have tried shading it more but still goes green even with the fluid for clearing algae ,filters cleaned etc.
I will enquire .
Cheerio.Viktoria.

[Jebber]

Yes Viktoria, ponds do need a lot of attention to keep the fish healthy. Perhaps there is somewhere near you that would take your fish.

When the grandchildren started to arrive, we decided to do away with our pond for safety. We asked at our local garden centre about re homing  the goldfish, they have a large raised pond full of fish. They said they would be happy to take our fish, so they ended up enjoying far greater room to swim around in, plus plenty of fish for company.