One of the highlights of my sister's visit with us over half term was a trip to Dunham Massey. During the First World War, Lady Stamford, the owner of this huge Georgian house, offered it to the Red Cross and it was transformed into a military hospital. To mark the centenary of the First World War, the National Trust, who now own the house, restored the hospital’s main ward, the recreation room, the operating theatre and the nurses’ station. They used items left in the house from the time as well as contemporary photos and letters, so it was a very evocative visit, made more so by the presence of actors who move around you and act out part of their lives. This is part of the ward.
You can see the two actors in position. The patient in the bed is very depressed and the nurse is comforting him. He is lying in a bed which is a replica of the original beds, many of which were still stored in the house, as were the lockers, lamps and other equipment. (Original beds and chairs were displayed but roped off, but you could handle most of the other things) You could see items from the time displayed on the lockers, and you could read the patients charts which are displayed on the ends of the beds. If the beds weren't occupied, you could sit on them to rest or to read the newspapers and magazines of the time, or descriptions of the treatment given to the patients. Various medical items were also on display, like the standard plaster cast used on a broken leg and the method used to keep it elevated.
The conditions in the hospital were somewhat different from those in a hospital today.
I hope you can read these rules, they are quite revealing. Of course, this was a convalescent hospital, so many of these patients were recovering from their wounds and today would probably have been sent home to get on with things by themselves.
The recreation area was also used as the canteen. I can remember seeing enamel plates and mugs just like these as a child, in fact my father used a mug just like that one as his shaving mug.
Because it was a recreation area as well as a canteen, actors dressed as patients came in and read or played chess or wrote letters for one another - this was a hospital for the men, not the officers, so some couldn't read or write. There was also a piano for community singing. I can remember living for six months in a boarding house in Nakura in Kenya where there was a piano, and both of my parents played popular songs of both wars so everybody could have a sing song. My father couldn't read music, but he played by ear, a talent neither of his children inherited, I am sad to say.
The operating theatre for the hospital was in the hall at the foot of the main stairs, and the operation taking place there (with life sized figures and a spoken commentary) was brain surgery!
One of the reasons for the choice of this area for the operations was the nearby sink under the stairs which helped a bit towards the hygiene I suppose.
As the patients recovered, they were encouraged to get out into the fresh air and make use of the extensive grounds.
This was a part of the garden nearer to the house, though those who were fitter would be able to walk for miles.
Those who weren't well enough to walk could could at least sit out in the courtyards in the sun.
These steamer chair were originals, in use at the time.
After we had seen round the hospital, we walked round the house, which Paul and I had seen several times before. My sister unfortunately wasn't able to see the whole of the house because she is finding walking very difficult at the moment.
We enjoyed our two visits here very much, and were sorry my daughter-in-law hadn't managed to bring her sister round the house during her visit the previous month. We had originally intended to bring my daughter-in-law and grandson on this second occasion, looking after my grandson and playing with him in the garden while my sister and my daughter-in-law saw round the house and hospital.
However, we had to let my sister out of the car at the entrance as she couldn't manage the walk from the car park, and my grandson, who is devoted to her, insisted on getting out as well. By the time we got back from parking the car, my grandson had squeezed under a fence and run off to have an adventure all by himself in the little wood adjoining the house. There was no sign of him at all, and my sister, being unable to follow him, was distraught. That was nothing to the frantic state of his mother when she turned up, and she and Paul and several passers by all rushed into the wood shouting my grandson's name, while I went off to alert the people at the front desk who prepared to initiate an emergency search. Fortunately, Paul found him trotting along a path all by himself before we had turned out the whole place to search for him, but his mother was not at all pleased with him for giving us all such a nasty shock and he was taken home immediately in disgrace. So the visit, while we enjoyed it very much, not not go quite as planned!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment