Ann and Carol signing books at the launch of "The Children of Craig-y-nos".

(photo: Karen Howard)

Christine and Beryl at book launch

Christine Perry ( nee Bennett) and Beryl Rowlands ( nee Richards)  at the book launch of "The Children of Craig-y-nos".

(Photo: Karen Howard)

1950s- Pat and Ann - Craig-y-nos Castle

Pat Stickler ( nee Moore) and Ann Shaw ( nee Rumsey at the book launch.*

Says Pat: " I was in the bed next to Ann when she came in.  I was told not to frighten her with ghost stories because she was too ill."

*"The Children of Craig-y-nos" by Ann Shaw and Carole Reeves  is available online at Amazon.co.uk or direct from Dr Carole Reeves: 02076 798135

1940s Reunion at book launch

Nurse Glen with ex patient Roy Harry


All from the 1940s ex- patients (left to right) Christine Raybold, Vera Blewett and Roy Harry with nurse Valerie Brent (extreme right)


Megan Thomas ( 1941-1944) " I came out just after my 17th birthday"

Book signing - Craig-y-nos Castle

Dr Carole Reeves, Outreach Historian with the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London and Ann Shaw co-authors of the book "The Children of Craig-y-nos" * signing copies of the book at the recent launch in the restored Glass Conservatory in the Castle.

Some of the people present had been child patients in the Conservatory.


* Book available online from Amazon.co.uk or

Dr Carole Reeves
Outreach Historian
The Wellcome Trust Centre
for the History of Medicine at UCL
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE

Or Val's newsagent, Ystradgynlais

Free PDF file to download from
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed/library/craig_book

(photo: Karen Howard)

Launch top story on UCL site

Our book launch of "The Children of Craig-y-nos" is the top story on the University of London online site. Follow this link http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0905/09050504

Roy Harry

Roy Harry at the book launch in Craig-y-nos Castle



Roy as a child after his time in Craig-y-nos.

In the book "Children of Craig-y-nos" Roy wrote an account of his experience of having a gastric lavage.
This is the procedure whereby a child was held, often by more than one nurse, while another pushed a tube down the child's throat to extract fluids from the stomach.

This was then injected into guinea pigs. If the guinea pigs lived you were cured and could go home.

He says of his 18 months in Craig-y-nos:" I went home singing in Welsh with nits in my hair."

Free download of "Children of Craig-y-nos"

You can download "Children of Craig-y-nos" for free by clicking on the following link:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed/library/craig_book

Then click on 'free download' in the text.

Or you can order a copy online from
Amazon.co.uk

A newsagent in Ystradgynlais has expressed an interest in stocking the book because so many customers have already asked for it. We will let you know when she has them.

Fifty years on: Children of Craig-y-nos- book launch

(from left to right) Christine Perry ( nee Bennett), Valerie Brent ( ex- nurse) and Beryl Richards ( nee Rowlands)

Christine has just forwarded me this photograph taken at last Friday's book launch so I thought it would be fun to put in photos of the time when they were in Craig-y-nos - over 50 years ago.





Christine in playful mode on the balcony of Ward 2 ( 1956)


Beryl with Tosca, the pony belonging to Dr Williams' daughters that the teenage patients used to ride using their dressing-gown girdles as halters- strictly forbidden of course!

"The Children of Craig-y-nos" is available from Amazon.com

Photos from Book launch

(from left to right) Dr Carole Reeves, co-author and medical historian, Valerie Brent, ex nurse who worked at Craig-y-nos for two years as a teenager in the 1940s, Ann Shaw, ex-patient and co-author, Cynthia Mullane, director The Sleeping Giant Foundation, the local oral history charity who were very helpful in getting the project started.



Do you have photos from the book launch which you would like to share?
then send them on email to annshaw@mac.com

Book launch- Craig-y-nos Castle

Dr Carole Reeves ( left) and Ann Shaw in the Glass Conservatory the day before the book launch.

Our 200 books sold out within 2 hours! Clive Rowlands opened it at noon . He told the story of his time as boy on the balcony and how he kicked a rugby wall straight throw the French windows and got put in a straitjacket .

Cynthia Mullane of The Sleeping Giant introduced Carol and myself. The Sleeping Giant filmed the event. Lots of people took photos including my friend Karen Howerd from Scotland. Angela ( my neice) and her husband Roger sold the books while Carole Reeves and I signed them.

Caroline Boyce, (nee Havard) ex patient returning for the first time in 50 years had travelled from Scotland with her husband Paul and they helped at the launch by giving people name badges.

BBC journalist Geoff Ballinger interviewed many ex patients including Nurse Glenys Davies who was looking very well.

Barbara Pye now in her 80th year was there with two friends who used to visit her when she was in Craigynos as a young woman in 1947. Barbara was among the first in Britain to receive streptomycin.

It was also the first time back for Pamela Hamer and in my
introduction I told the story how she woke up one night on the balcony to find a rat I'm her bed!

Will post photos on blog on return to Scotland.

Says Carole: " We could have sold another 100 easily."

Don't worry if you didnt get a copy on the day. This is print-on-demand so we will never run out except for a few days.
Many people asked to be put on a list and we will contact you.

Meanwhile you can always get the book from Amazon.co.uk
or ask your local bookshop to order it for you. Price £9.99

Child's plaster bed- Craig-y-nos

Roy Harry with Linda Delves and the plaster cast belonging to a relative

Here's a medical curiosity: how many people would recognize this cast as that belonging to a child with TB?

It was found in the attic of one Swansea family and Linda Delve rang me wondering what to do with it.

It belonged to her aunt Margaret Scott who was in Craig-y-nos as a toddler in the early 1940s. She was sent home as a five year old with the plaster cast and told to sleep in it every night.

Her aunt has since died.

Linda hopes to interest Swansea museum in adding it to their collection for
TB was rife in the Welsh valleys and many children spent years lying motionless in such contraptions.

Meanwhile, if you come to our book launch on Friday, May 1st, at Craig-y-nos Castle you will be able to see the plaster cast for it will be on display for a day.

Craig-y-nos - 2 nights as Christmas present!

Patricia Stickler ( nee Moore) tells me she will be staying at Craig-y-nos Castle this week.


"My husband and I will be staying at the hotel for April 29/30 as a Christmas gift from my daughter, who is a dog fanatic. Just before Christmas she found one of the dog trust sites auctioning two nights at Craig-y-nos donated by the hotel and thought it would be an ideal present -or not???

Anyway, her partner stayed up all night to successfully bid for it.

I did have mixed feelings but when I heard of your book launch I decided to go ahead."


I look forward to meeting you Patricia, especially since we seemed to have been next to each other in bed some 50 years ago!

"Tied to the bed, in a straitjacket" - Joan, age 8, 1948

Just when you think you have heard all the stories about Craig-y-nos yet another new one pops into my email box.

Wendy Dove says her mother, Joan Harris, was in Craig-y-nos for two years ( 1948-50.)

"I was brought up hearing many stories of her stay there, and I was always intrigued to know more! I will most definitely be buying your book.

"Most of her stories were quite negative. Mum was 8/9 at the time and strong minded, so I suppose she would be getting into a lot of mischief!"

So I rang Joan up. She lives in Coventry, works as a hotel manageress and had discovered this blog quite accidentally while googling her home town of Phillipstown near Tredegar.


"I couldn't believe it when I read the stories. Until now nobody would believe me when I told them the things that happened to me as a child in Craig-y-nos.

"I used to be tied to the bed on a regular basis, it was a strait-jacket they put you into and folded your arms in front of you. I used to get up to mischief. Once I threw a slipper and it went straight out of the window through the iron bars ( remember the iron bars on the windows? ) and landed in the courtyard near a nurse who was standing there with her boyfriend.

Well, I got a terrible row . They wanted to know whose slipper it was. So, back into the straitjacket for me."

"My bed war near the fire escape and I used to plan to escape. I thought if I followed the river it would lead me to Swansea to my grandmother's home."


Joan was one of nine children and the family moved to Coventry when she was 16. She is married with one daughter.


How about this for a coincidence: Joan was in the next bed to Caroline Boyce ( nee Havard) who lives 15 miles along the road from me in Scotland!...

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

Just checked with the Castle. So far 95 people have booked in for lunch amd there will be two sittings.

It should be quite a party!
We leave from Scotland next Wednesday flying down to Cardiff then picking up a hire car. We will be staying in Abercraf.

Ann and Mari on the farm

Ann Shaw ( nee Rumsey) (left) and Mari Friend( nee Jenkins) at Ty-Llangenny farm.


After I left Craig-y-nos Mari used to come with her parents to visit and often she would stay on the farm.

My dog Bonnie- life after Craig-y-nos

s

My mother promised me a puppy when I came home from Craig-y-nos and this is Bonnie my Welsh corgi.

Len Ley- local historian

Len Ley

Len rang me this morning to say that he will be able to attend the launch and he will be available to do tours of the castle.

This was very popular at the last Reunion - most ex-patients just want to see where their beds were!
However, for those of us who were out on the balconies there is nothing to see because they were demolished many years ago.


The Childrens wards remain like a time warp- virtually unchanged from the days it was used as a childrens santaorium though latterly these rooms were used as a geriatric hospital.

Today the rooms form the basis for the ghost hunting tours with seances taking place in the Six-Bedder, formerly the boudoir of Adelina Patti.


Portrait of Adelina Patti , Brecon Town Hall.

Flying visit- book launch

My very good friend Karen Howard tells me that she will be taking the early morning flight from Edinburgh to Cardiff on May 1 so that she will be able to attend the book launch.

Children of Craig-y-nos book launch

Marlene ( centre) with her family in California



Marlene in Craig-y-nos 1954



Sheila Halford inside Ward 2 with Marlene's bed on blocks behind her.

This is the image that Marlene found one day when she "googled" Craig-y-nos - and that is how she discovered the "Chidlren of Craig-y-nos" project.


BBC Radio 4 want to make a programme about "The Children of Craig-y-nos" and we think will be there on the May 1st for the launch of the book.

Meanwhile sixty people have already booked in for the lunch.

And I am getting phone calls from all over the place from people anxious to make certain that they will get a copy of the book on the day.


Marlene Philibosian (nee Hopkins) rang from California. She would love to come over but she will be in Hawaii at the time ( lucky woman!). However Marlene wants a book and Dr Carole Reeves ( my co-author) has suggested she get it from Amazon.com.

It will be available online after May 1st.

Marlene was in from 1953 - 54. She says it was the experience of Craig-y-nos that took her into nursing and led her to further her studies in America - and she never returned.

"The girl in the next bed to me went on to become a doctor - Gwyneth Davies".

Many ex patients did in fact go into nursing or health related professions.