Craig-y-nos Castle

Budgies and memories- Frances Purcell 1953-54

2009-11-02T18:31:00.003Z

Ann with Bubbles

Memory is a curious thing ...

Take the case of my budgies, Bubble and Squeak ( named by Dr Huppert!). The other day I spoke to Frances Heenan ( nee Purcell). We were both children in Ward 2 together yet neither of us remembers the other.
Except the budgies.

I tell her the budgies were mine. She is surprised. She says after I left it was her responsibility to look after them though she assures me that there was only one not two.

Anyway one day she didn't tie the string properly on the cage door .

And Bubbles flew away.

Frances apologises, half a century later, for the mishap.

" I am so sorry."

I am lost for words. I never ever expected to meet someone, even if only over the phone, who not only remembered my budgies but had actually been put in charge of them.

Gwyneth Davies- Frances Purcell

2009-10-24T11:51:00.002+01:00

Frances Purcell emailed:

" I am so pleased to hear that Gwyneth recovered and
went on to become a doctor. She was such a
lovely gentle girl.

I did not achieve any thing so grand.

Some years after I recovered my mother passed
away and I looked after my father and brother and sister for years.

I did not marry until I was 38 years old when ."

Traditional role of unmarried daughter
Frances, your story is that of so many young women in Wales where it was expected that the daughter would give up her life to look after elderly relatives.
When the family trawled around relatives to care for my 80 year old grandmother living on an isolated Welsh hill farm my name came up (" Ann is not married...she can do it").
I resisted the pressure though on at least two other occasions when an emergency call came to return to help out on the family farm I did succumb, giving up my job and flat in London to return to Wales.

Only last week I heard of a friend's aunt, now in her late 70's, who said her life stopped at 34 years of age when she left her secretarial job in London to return to the family farm to care for her ageing parents.

Frances Heenan (nee Purcell)- Ward 2, 1953-54

2009-10-18T11:54:00.013+01:00

Frances Purcell e-mailed me after googling Craig-y-nos.

She is the only one, to my knowledge, to have come forward who spent most of her time inside Ward 2. ( This is curious because most of the children, around 15-18, were in fact inside the ward with only 6-8 girls on the balcony. )

Frances wrote:

"I was a patient in Ward 2 at Craig-y-Nos Hospital from 1953-54.

The girls called me Percy because my maiden name was Frances Purcell.

I would love to hear from anyone remembers me or would like to write to me?

If so, you are very welcome to write to me at my email address: francis.heenan@ntlworld.co.uk

I very much look forward to hearing from any of you.

I was mostly in the ward but was on the balcony for some months. It was winter and so very cold, a hot water bottle froze in one of the girls' beds.

The doctors

Dr Mullhall

Dr Williams

I wonder if Dr Mullhall is still with us? ( Yes he is still alive and living near Brecon - Ann)
Both he and Dr.Williams were loved by all the girls. After their rounds we would all say who we liked the best, a bit naughty for girls so young.

Memories

Gwyneth Davies suffered from asthma and Dr Huppert put her out on the balcony during a foggy spell in the hope that it would cure her. She had a severe attack one night . Even as a young girl Gwyneth wanted to be a doctor and she became one .

"I remember the Christian names of some of the girls on the ward; there was Brenda with short dark hair, Ann Norris who was there before I arrived, Gwyneth a lovely girl with long brown hair, who had severe asthma, Marilyn who was told her mother had died, someone pulled the curtains around her and left her to cry. There was a girl with lovely red hair from Swansea, I can't remember her name. Her parents gave her a big doll. "

"The Children of Craig-y-nos" by Ann Shaw and Carole Reeves is published by the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History
of Medicine, UCL , price £9.99 and is available from Waterstones and most major bookshops or from Amazon online.

"The Children of Craig-y-nos" - book

2009-10-13T13:01:00.001+01:00

It is good to hear "The Children of Craig-y-nos" is selling in Wales.

Carole Hughes sent me the following email:

"i had my copy of the book the children of craig y nos in may at craig y nos
but my daughter and son in law went to swansea and in waterstones there they had a lot of copies of the book

but amanda and phillip then went walking in neath abbey they walk miles and philip spoke to a sister williams from craig y nos

she knew nothing of the book but sent a young man into swansea to waterstones where she had her copy

many people who were either patients or nursing staff never knew but we live so near sister williams we never seen her before or since that day."

Raymond O'Connor- Lincolnshire

2009-10-11T18:51:00.004+01:00

Glass conservatory for the babies and small children

And still the "children of Craig-y-nos" are coming forward in search of their missing past.

Only the other day I received this very moving email from Raymond O'Connor in Lincolnshire:

" I was one of those children at Craig-y-nos along with my sister Eileen and my mother Bertha Kathlyn Mary O'Connor nee Davies who died on 30th September 1943 at Craigynos.

Her death certificate was signed by G. Richards M.B. (cause of death tuberculosis).

As I was just 5 year old when my mother died and my sister Eileen was 3, do you have any records as to when my sister and myself were released after my mother's death?

I do have 2 photographs; the first one is with my parents at the age of approximately 18 mon.ths, and the second one is my mother, my sister and myself just before she went into Craig-y-nos.

My father was away in the war.

Incidentally, I just received a copy of your book from my aunt in Swansea as a birthday
present. I will be 71 on the 1st of October and my sister Eileen will be 69 on 20th Nov.
The full story about our childhood and our adult life and the way everything affected us is
a very, very sad story."

Raymond added:
" To this day I still have dreams of the glass conservatory.

I now live in Lincolnshire."

I have to tell Raymond that all records were destroyed - that's why we tried to piece together 40 years of missing Welsh history in our book The Children of Craig-y-nos available online from Amazon or your local Waterstones.

Waterstone's Abergavenny

2009-10-07T12:21:00.016+01:00

Just heard that a friend finally managed to get a copy of "The Children of Craig-y-nos" from Waterstone's Abergavenny though he placed an order several weeks ago.

I tell people it is quicker to get it online from Amazon

Valerie Brent and Susan Davies- surprise!

2009-10-04T12:05:00.006+01:00

Valerie Brent ( left) with Susan Davies ( nee Evans) at her 70th birthday party

Susan, a former child patient in Craig-y-nos in the early 1950s had a double surprise the other day.

For her family gave her a surprise 70th birthday party and retired nurse Valerie Brent, the star guest presented Susan with a copy of "The Children of Craig-y-nos".

Valerie says:" Susan was unable to make the book launch but she did come to the reunion the year before. She hadn't been able to get hold of a copy of the book so I got her one and gave it to he. She was absolutely delighted."

Comment
Frances Purcell said...
I could not make the Exhibition.

I was a patient in Ward 2 at Craig-y-Nos Hospital from 1953 – 1954

The girls called me Percy because my Maiden name was Frances Purcell.

I would love to hear from anyone remembers me or would like to write to me? If so. you are very welcome to write to me at my email address: francis.heenan@ntlworld.co.uk

I very much look forward to hearing from any of you.

Kind regards, Frances

Jonathain Aitken and TB

2009-09-29T10:27:00.005+01:00

I was surprised to hear former MP Jonathan Aitken talking on Radio 4 this morning ( "The House I Grew Up in") about his time as a three year old in hospital with TB.

The son of a wealthy, powerful Dublin family he caught TB from his Irish nanny and spent four years encased in plaster in the Cuppae hospital run by nuns.

He said his four years lying motionless on an iron frame taught him to be stoical, and time spent in this TB hospital proved useful training for his seven months in prison in adult life after being caught lying to the court.

He says he was happy there. He had become institutionalised and accepted that was the way life was. He remembers being wheeled outdoor for fresh air and how Sister Mary Finbar would order them to breathe deeply for the "fresh air treatment".

"It was all very theatrical. It was as if she was conducting an orchestra."

Life in the Dublin hospital though seems far less austere then in Craig-y-nos as our stories reveal in"The Children of Craig-y-nos". ( available from Amazon and a number of good bookshops.

Those of us in Craig-y-nos, including myself, lived out on the balconies all year round including in the snow - not wheeled out for a brief period each day.

Benefits of the "Children of Craig-y-nos" project

2009-09-26T10:58:00.002+01:00

Just heard of another instance where an ex child patient said how much he had benefited from being able to talk about his early traumatic days as a child in Craig-y-nos as a result of this project.

"For years something that had been hidden is now out in the open. And that must be a good thing," said Terry Hunt.

Balcony boys - reunited

2009-09-22T22:24:00.003+01:00

Roy Harry and Gerwyn Davies were both "balcony boys" in the 1940s and they have just discovered they live less than a quarter of a mile from each other in Cwmavon.

"We have never met since those days in Craig-y-nos but we plan to do so now," says Roy.

They have been in telephone contact after discovering through photographs on the blog that they were there together.

History of TB hospitals- Abergele and Craig-y-nos

2009-09-13T18:57:00.005+01:00

Valerie Brent rang to say she is reading a book on "The History of Abergele hospital - confronting the white plague". From her description it would appear to be similar to "The Children of Craig-y-nos" but a search on the internet reveals it is out of print and neither are there any second-hand copies available.

I wonder if anyone knows of a copy? It was published in 1999 by Gee and Son, Denbeigh Printers. ISBN -0707403316.

Meanwhile I have heard from a university friend at Swansea University that Waterstones are now stocking "The Children of Craig-y-nos".

And Pamela Hamer tells me ( on Facebook) that all her friends and relatives are queueing up to borrow her copy!....

Girl Guides-Children of Craig-y-nos

2009-09-05T10:21:00.016+01:00

This month the Girl Guides movement begins celebrating its centenary and there will be many stories of the ways it has benefited the community.

Mair Harris ( nee Edwards) centre with some of the Girl Guides on Ward 2 balcony

But there is one story that stands out, at least in the memories of girls who were living in an isolated TB sanatorium in a remote Welsh castle.

For Craig-y-nos had its own group, formed by an ex-patient, Ina Hopkins who returned as a medical secretary.( She was the captain of her local troop.)

I was one of those girls. It was our first link with the outside world , apart from monthly visitors. It gave us hope.

I remember how we used to cook sausages on an open fire on the balcony- something I suspect that would contravene today's Health and Safety regulations!

Christine Perry ( nee Bennett) is another. Christine excelled as a Girl Guider and became a leader, even representing the troop at a local event, the first occasion for anyone from the TB sanatorium taking part in an outside community event.

Nurse Glenys Davies recalls the occacion that Christine had their flag blessed in Abercrave church:

"I always remember that she was carrying the standard and Sister Morgan was always worried about the clock outside the door. ‘Watch that clock, watch that clock!’ Poor Christine was worked up and down it comes, oh dear, dear. The end of the world! It was only a clock anyway."

Girl Guides on Ward 2 balcony. Christine is on the far left back row.

Those of us who were Girl Guiders in Craig-y-nos have very fond memories of the organisation for it brought a bit of the outside world into our isolated lives.

The Girl Guide troop in Craig-y-nos is remembered with very fond memories for it was the first positive step by an outside organisation to introduce a sense of normality into lives of children removed from the outside world.

Photos from the collection of Ann Shaw ( nee Rumsey) and Christine Perry ( nee Bennett).

Children return to Craig-y-nos

2009-09-03T11:37:00.006+01:00

Ann Shaw ( nee Rumsey) and Roy Harry beside the lake in Craig-y-nos during recent return visit.

Ann on the balcony of Ward 2, 1951

Roy on the balcony of Ward 1 (far right), 1945

Now that we have "discovered" Craig-y-nos after more than half a century some of us keep returning to renew friendships and memories of past times. I was in Wales recently for research on Sully and took the opportunity to call in at Craig-y-nos to meet up with Roy and his family for lunch.

Haydn Beynon- deceased July 16 2009

2009-08-22T11:33:00.014+01:00

Haydn on the boys balcony, age 7, 1931

I have just received the following email from Gillian Beynon:

"I thought I should tell you you that my dear father- in- law passed away during the early hours on 16 July rather suddenly - he was 84 and had been enjoying our son's birthday only hours before his passing.

I would like to thank you on behalf of all our family for including him in your book and for the enjoyment he took in the reunions and helping you to gather information to put your findings in print.

The book is remarkable thanks to the testimonies of people like my father in law and many others and you have done them proud by setting the record straight and producing a book to be proud of and be of interest to many for years to come.

His experiences like others will live on in print and the book is a marvellous keepsake for us all."

Extract from "The Children of Craig-y-nos", Haydn's story:

"My bed was on the balcony and I can remember sitting up in bed with pyjamas on and my mother and father with overcoats and scarves and hats on, the snow and the rain coming in, and they'd be shivering. It was cold but you didn't feel it after a while.

...You were given four squares of Cadbury's chocolate, and I didn't qualify because if you didn't eat your afters, you couldn't have chocolate. I can remember vividly...every few days the curtains would go around a bed and porters would wheel somebody away who had died. I was only a youngster but it seemed that there were lots of people dying at that time, like every other day.

Craig-y-nos was monotonous, one day after the other. The difference between Highland Moors, where I went in 1932, and Craig-y-nos is that there you were encouraged to play."

"The Children of Craig-y-nos" by Ann Shaw and Carole Reeves, published by the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, UCL, price £9.99p is available online Amazon.co.uk or from any good bookshop, Brecon museum, Val's newsagent in Ystradgynalais and through the Welsh Book Council.

Craig-y-nos Tearoom

2009-08-18T12:16:00.008+01:00

Paul Brandon outside the former gardeners shed in Craig-y-nos

Last week while in Wales I met Paul Brandon in Craig-y-nos.
He runs a specialist food company called Unusualfoods based in Ystalyfera and he also has a tearoom out of the former gardener's shed in Craig-y-nos Castle.

Now that brought back memories! for that was the place that we "balcony girls" from Ward 2 used to go and sit and talk to the gardeners while all the time Sister Morgan and Dr Hubbard thought we were walking around the grounds filling our lungs with fresh air. Instead we were ensconced in a warm smoky fug sharing tea and biscuits with the men.

Paul tells me that many ex-patients come into his cafe for refreshments and since they heard about the book
"The Children of Craig-y-nos" they want to buy a copy.

" I don't know what to tell them because we don't sell books, neither do I know where they can get a copy from. But there is clearly a demand for it and I would be happy to stock it if I could find it."

From next February Paul will be opening a much bigger tearoom and Welsh Craft Centre within the Craig-y-nos Country Park Visitors Centre and he will be stocking books there.

Meanwhile I have put Paul in touch with some suppliers who may be prepared to let him have some copies as a "one-off" until his new premises are up and running.

Welsh Book Council - "The Children of Craig-y-nos"

2009-08-18T10:40:00.016+01:00

Dafydd Jones of the Welsh Book Council tells me that they will be stocking"The Children of Craig-y-nos"" so museums and shops specialising in Welsh literature and crafts will in future be able to order direct from them.

The glitch seems to have been over the fact that the book is "print-on-demand" and wholesalers are still trying to figure out a business role model for dealing with it.

The book is, of course, available online from Amazon.co.uk, price £9.99 or from any good bookseller.

Comment:
Delyth Morgans said...
Thank you for your cooperation with the Welsh Books Council. The book is now available on
www.gwales.com

Brecon museum and "The Children of Craig-y-nos"

2009-08-17T11:31:00.014+01:00

Brecon museum: Caroline Gorman (top) and Helen Weeks with copies of "The Children of Craig-y-nos"

Call in to Brecon museum to see how "The Children of Craig-y-nos" is selling and am horrified to find that the museum have not been able to obtain copies from the Welsh Book Council though we had been assured they would have it. Neither is it available from their on-line site.

Fortunately I had a couple of copies with me so I was able to let the museum have them.

The demand for the book followed a review in the Brecon and Radnor Express some weeks ago.

"Children of Craig-y-nos" - Surrey and Glasgow

2009-08-17T11:30:00.000+01:00

Receive phone call from Surrey.

It's Mary Davies who was in Craigynos as a toddler.

" I am ringing to say I have just bought the book ( I ordered it through my local bookshop) and I would like to say how pleased I am with it."

A friend rang from Glasgow also rings to say she loaned her copy of the book to a Glasgow doctor who was one of the "balcony boys" in the days when sanatoriums ringed the city.

He too is fascinated by the Craig-y-nos story.

Cerwyn Davies one of the "balcony boys" - 1945

2009-08-14T12:01:00.011+01:00

Gerwyn Davies and other boys on the balcony , 1945

Book launch of The Children of Craig-y-nos
Cerwyn Davies brought along some photos , including this one, to the book launch/reunion and he says he found it a "memorable and very poignant occasion".

Cerwyn tells me that one big memory that stands out from his time in Craig-y-nos Castle is the occasion that:

"My uncle brought me in some records for the gramophone and I threw them like flying saucers over the balcony into the bushes. One of the gardeners reported me and I got put in a straitjacket."

He had an older brother who used to come along to the castle for the monthly visiting but had to stand out in the courtyard or go to the cafe opposite and his brother remembers an outside lavatory with a photograph of Adelina Patti in it.

" I gave my brother a copy of "The Children of Craig-y-nos" to read and he got very upset. I told him "You weren't the one in there having tubes pushed down your throat or tied up in straitjackets!"

But my brother says it brought back all the memories of those days."

Roy Harry, age three and a half , 1945-46

2009-08-03T18:17:00.004+01:00

Roy Harry rings to tell me he is the boy wearing glasses. He had never seen this photo before so I am putting him in touch with Gerwyn Davies who sent the photo in.

Book launch - May 1st Craig-y-nos Castle

2009-07-27T12:41:00.004+01:00

Caroline Boyce ( nee Havard) and her husband Paul volunteered to register everyone attending the book launch of "The Children of Craig-y-nos".

Like many ex-patients the day was particularly emotional for Caroline because she had not returned to Craig-y-nos since she left as a child in 1950.

On the balcony of Ward 2, 1950 (from left to right) Mary Davies, Ann Rumsey ( in bed) and Caroline Havard

Ann and Caroline in Scotland

Today Caroline lives in Scotland - about fifteen miles from my home! something we only discovered through this project.

"My lost childhood" -Bobbie

2009-07-23T10:47:00.005+01:00

Main entrance to the Adelina Patti sanatorium, Craig-y-nos Castle

Barbara Glover, known to her friends as “Bobbie, felt as she approached her 70th birthday a desire to find out about her missing three years of childhood.

All she knew was that she had spent it in a Welsh sanatorium a place she was put as a three year old in 1943 with TB of the bones and she was to remain there until 1946.

“My one big memory was of American soldiers marching past and throwing sweets on to our beds which had been wheeled out for the fresh air.

“But my parents never talked about my time there.
After they died I went through their papers hoping to find some clues.
There was nothing,” said “Bobbie”, speaking to me on the phone from her home in Peterborough.

The eldest of 9 children her Irish parents had emigrated to Birmingham in the late 1930’s. But she had no idea why she ended up in a Welsh hospital “ unless we had been evacuated there during the war”.

“ All I know is that my parents could only afford to visit once a year at Christmas time.”

Another big memory is the day she left.
“ These two strangers came to get me, they were my parents, and I screamed and screamed because I didn’t want to leave the nurses and the other children. When I got home to Birmingham I had to learnt walk again because I had a calliper on and there were these other children there- my brothers and sisters whom I didn’t know and my mother was expecting again.”

The Glass Conservatory, used for babies and toddlers*

At a recent family gathering she was talking about these early memories, when her daughter, Karemah, picked up her laptop and said:” lets find out!”

She typed TB sanatorium Wales into Google and up popped the “Children of Craig-y-nos” blog.
“ I was amazed when I saw the photos. It fitted in with my memories.”

“Bobbie” is thrilled to discover her missing past and I have given her the names of people who were there at the same time as her.
She now plans to visit Craig-y-nos.

Looking back over her own life she says it has “had its ups and downs”.

“I married at 18 and my first husband died of cancer when I was 26 leaving me with two young children.
Five years later I met another man who wanted more children.
“But on the day I came home with the baby he announced he was leaving me for a woman he had met in the office.”

The story has a happy ending though for Bobbie met another man and they have been happily married for twenty years.

And so the story of “The Children of Craig-y-nos” continues….

*The Glass Conservatory has recently been refurbished into a function room for the Castle which specialises in weddings and ghost tours.

Boys on the balcony - 1945

2009-07-13T14:11:00.005+01:00

Gerwyn Davies has sent in these photos of his time in Craig-y-nos. He was there for 14 months up to 1945. We are still trying to put names to the children.

Do you recognize anyone? If so email :annshaw@mac.com

"The Children of Craig-y-nos" by Ann Shaw and Carole Reeves is published by The Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine, UCL, in paperback, price £9.99p and available from most good bookshops or online from Amazon.co.uk

TB Survival Project

2009-07-08T11:56:00.002+01:00

I wonder how many of you know about the TB Survival Project? a former colleague of mine gave me this link.
n The Herald newspaper , where I worked for over 20 years, in Glasgow.

Sadly she died recently from TB.
TB Survival Project

Mary Davies- how the internet reunited the "lost children"

2009-06-29T10:48:00.014+01:00

Mary, age 9 , Ward 2 balcony, 1951

Mary Davies ( nee Morris) with her grandson, Stephen, at the book launch of "The Children of Craig-y-nos".

Often it was the children and grandchildren of the original "children of Craig-y-nos" that made the initial contact with me like Stephen (above). This is his original email on behalf of his grandmother:

"I was in Craig-y-nos in 1951. The photo shows me holding a teddy bear taken in September it was a present from my family for my 9th birthday in August. I don’t remember much about my stay only that I was out on the balcony and when I was rainy and windy they had to put tarpaulin on top of the bed to stop it getting wet. While in Craig-Y-Nos I made 3 good friends one was called Mary Jones one Jeanette Wakeham but I cannot recall the name of the 3rd one, we had a photograph taken but I can’t find it but will keep looking for it, and post it up on here when I do. I also remember doing lessons much to my disgust!

When I had a bungalow built I named it Craig-y-nos after my experience of the real Craig-Y-Nos.

I have been married for 46 years have 3 children and 4 grandchildren. The thing that sticks out in my mind was my parents were only allowed to see me one weekend a month. They only came one day as it was to far to travel as we lived in Rhayader in Mid Wales."

Mary still lives in Rhayader and, at our first official reunion two years ago, she was the first to arrive having driven alone for over two hours through the mountains.

This video clip captures her emotions on that momentous day:
Mary Davies

"The Children of Craig-y-nos" by Ann Shaw and Carole Reeves, paperback price £9.99., available from Brecon museum, Amazon.co.uk or most good bookshops.