Memories From the Islands - Hospitals

"This photograph reminds me that I had a tooth extracted in hospital when I was small. They had to give me chloroform (an anaesthetic) - it had a horrible smell - and then you'd go to sleep.

It also reminds me of when my dad was in hospital. You'd have a big ward; with beds on both sides but it used to be very clean. Look at how dignified the nurses look; they used to have these white uniforms - immaculate. Now, at Kingston public hospital, they have to have armed police - like a battlefield.

When my mum had a baby once, they brought the ambulance. Where I come from, nobody takes the ambulance! If you do, people believe you are the poorest of the poor. We didn't have cabs, you would have two or three people in the district with cars and, if you couldn't walk, you would pay them to take you to the hospital. "

A ward in San Fernando Hospital, 1955 Catalogue Reference: () INF10/354/007

"When we were children, men and women would never share a hospital ward. My grandfather fell off a ladder and broke his neck. He had to go into hospital; he died - but he raised mighty hell first. He didn't want the young nurses to undress him or anything like that. He'd say, 'Jesus God, Louise, all these young girls changing my clothes!'" "When I came to England, I trained as a nurse and this is how we used to look. We didn't have stockings for our colour; we used to buy stockings in Woolworths with big packets of Typhoo tea, brew it up and use it to dye the stockings, soaking them overnight." These memories came out of a project involving Haringey Third Age, Moving Here, The National Archives and Bruce Castle Museum Haringey.