Aneurin Bevan, Secretary of State for Health, who spearheaded the introduction of the National Health Service on
5th July 1948
St. George’s Dispensary c.1914
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My brother was only eighteen months old and he caught meningitis and pneumonia, so mum decided to come home to London from evacuation. Where we stayed it had been very damp. So she brought us back, and as mum put it, they saved his life, over at Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children. The doctor, which was unusual in those days, because this was 1942, was a black doctor. And mum always emphasised this, that a black doctor saved her son’s life.
Gloria Lacey
East End slum dwellings c.1914
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We managed. It wasn’t an easy life. Always lived in furnished rooms with utility furniture. You used to get two blankets when you got married and utility coupons: two sheets, a bag, a mattress and you could buy on your coupons a table, chairs and a sideboard.
Lotte Tendler
I always wanted to be a nurse. When I was five years old, I said to my mother, “when I grow up I’m going to be a nurse.”
Caroline Patterson
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FACT: In England, in 1911, 130 in every 1000 children died in their 1st year of life.
In 1961, 21 in every 1000 children died in their 1st year of life.
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My mother was in hospital and my father used to cook for us when we came home lunchtime. I was working. One day he made us smoked haddock and a bone stuck in my throat. I went to the London Hospital but they wouldn’t serve me ‘cos I never had a shilling. At that time, you had to have a shilling to go in and be seen to. A shilling! I was fourteen. So I went back to work and when my father came home in the evening, I still had this bone in my throat. He took me back to the London Hospital. I think you could have heard what he said a mile away. A sister came out, wanted to know what was going on so my father said, “She’s a child, she’s fourteen years old and you refused to serve her because she never had a shilling.” So she took me by the hand and took me inside and within a second she took that bone out. He never paid no shilling.
Bertha Cohen
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Paulin Ward, London Hospital c.1930
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| FACT: 1948 saw the introduction of the National Health Service, providing basic, free, medical care for all citizens, regardless of income. |
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I was brought up in Sidney Street. At that time it was in a very poor condition. It had all the rats and the mice running round. They lived in your house, came in through the
floorboards. We had an outside toilet in the yard. If you went at night, freezing cold winter, the pipes burst and the toilets were out.
Cyril Hiller
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Slum dwellings, Poplar 1920’s
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Dockers Strike July 1923, entering East India Dock Road
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I remember the Dockers’ strike of 1923. It was a dreadful time. We were really starving. There were ten kids in our family. I did hear that they were queuing up at the Mission Hall, to get a jug of soup, and for each child you’d get a slice of bread. I knew we were starving, and I came back and told my mum about the soup. She said “Oh! I couldn’t!” She was very proud. I said, “Well put your shawl over your head and no one will recognise us.” She put it on and I said, “Come on, I’ll come with you.” I was only a kid. I must have been eight. I got the biggest jug in the house, from the washbasin, and we got it filled with soup, and had ten slices of bread, wrappedup in a towel. It was starvation then, you see.
Caroline Wheeler
Louise Stanley in Mile End Hospital, 1902. Two weeks after this photograph was taken she died of tuberculosis
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A lot of us kids had ringworm, because we used to wash our hair in soap. And because of the soap, it wasn’t washed off properly, it remained there, so we all got ringworm. We had to have our hair shaved off.
Cyril Hiller |
Opening of a Maternity Centre, Cornwall Avenue, 1922
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It was pre-National Health Service when my mum had me. My mum always said I cost her half a crown. She had to pay the hospital to care for us until she was able to come home. I think they stayed in a bit longer then than they do today. 2 and 6 might have been good value them days.
Gloria Lacey |
In the old days if we weren’t well there’d be the Jewish Penicillin, a jar or a bottle of what we called lokshen soup, chicken soup, that was the medicine of the day and it still is. They say it’s a Jewish meal and it’s very good for you.
Marion Davies
When the National Health Service came in it was a wonderful thing. It was the most wonderful thing in the world, wasn’t it? You’d go to a doctor and it would cost nothing. And I had one of the greatest doctors that ever lived, Hannah Billig. The funniest thing I am still at that practice today. She was a doctor in Cable Street, Jewish lady, did a lot of good work.
Marion Davies |
One of my brothers had a rash that came round his tummy. When my mum bathed it, she dried it off, put a penny over his navel, and wrapped it round with a rag, so that the rash wouldn’t spread. That’s the kind of thing people did before the National Health Service. But after it came in, if my children had a rash I could call the doctor, and the doctor would come in and say, “They’ve got chicken pox.” Or, “They’ve got measles.”
Vera Caley
I had scarlet fever very badly as a child. But every illness I had, The Jewish Board of Guardians took me to hospital.
Cyril Hiller |
Invalid children’s ward c.1930
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So lunchtime came, and the teacher said, “All those that have free dinners, stand on the form.” That feeling, standing there, never, ever left me.
Lily Sheller
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Health visitor at work, 1967
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I think that the whole ethos behind social work was to improve people’s quality of life. Whatever their problems might be, whether it be mental health, physical handicap, old age or whatever. It’s to try and make some improvement to their quality of life, and you couldn’t always achieve that.
Jean Featherstone
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