Iris Jones - 1938-1942-Glass Conservatory

Today it sounds positively medieval that a child could be "put away" for six years for a disease they never had and for two of those years to be strapped to a metal frame.

Yet that is what happened to Iris Jones. Her husband David rang to tell me a little of her story and he did so without anger or bitterness, simply to say "that was the way it was in those days."

For Iris, now 79 year of age and living in Cimla, Neath was admitted to the Glass Conservatory in Craig-y-nos, the ward for babies and small children, at seven years of age in 1938.

She was to remain there for four years. She does not recall it as being a sad time." I was only a child."

Her memories are of being wheeled out on to the veranda for the "fresh air" treatment and of singing in the Adelina Patti theatre. These were happy memories for her.

She was transferred to Kensington hospital, St Brides and put into a metal frame for two years only later to be discharged when they decided she did not have TB after all.

She recalls having to learn to walk again.

Early etching of Craig-y-nos castle

( courtesy Phil Lewis)

The announcement that Craig-y-nos Castle is on the market again has caused me to re-visit my archive of 1,200 photographs sent in during research for the book "The Children of Craig-y-nos".

Only about 200 of those photographs made it into print so I have decided to publish more of them on this blog.

Here is one sent in by Phil Lewis from Gerrads Cross, Buckinghamshire whose mother, Sister Margaret Philips, was one of the first nurses to be appointed in the early 1920's.

Craig-y-nos Castle for sale

Yet again Craig-y-nos Castle is about to change hands. It is on the market for £1.5million. The present owner is reputed to have bought it some ten years or more ago for £half a million. He has spent an enormous sum restoring it though it still has some way to go. The big problem I understand is the cost of the roof repairs on the main building. This is where the children's wards were and as a result they are virtually untouched from the days when it was first a children's TB hospital then a geriatric hospital. It was subsequently used as a base for ghost tours.

Now it looks as if it is all change again....

Margaret Morth - New Zealand

I have had a query from New Zealand from a descendant of Margaret Morth who died in Craig-y-nos in 1937 asking for information.

Well, as you know there are no official records and all we have is anecdotal evidence and this for the 1930s is very sparse. However, on the off-chance that someone may have some knowledge I am quoting this email:


"I write from New Zealand in the hope that you may be able to help.
Today I received my children's Great Grandmothers death Certificate that states she died in the above when it was a Sanatorium.

Her name was - Margaret Elaine Morth
Death - 5 Dec 1937 in Adelina Patti Hospital.
I would like to know if possible when she was admitted and for how long she was a patient and/or any other information that is held that can be released to the public. Are there any photos of her available.?

I hope you can be of assistance and look for ward to hearing from you.

Yours truly

Christine Walton
6 Ashmore Court
Huntington
Hamilton 3210
New Zealand"

If you do have some information then Christine would love to hear from you.

Joan Powell and Nurse Glenys Davies

I had a hunch that Nurse Glen might remember Joan Powell so I rang up Roy Harry and asked him if he would give her a call ( she is a very private person).
He agreed and within half an hour I get a call back to say yes of course she remembers Joan. She was one of the first to undergo an experimental operation on her spine by the surgeon Mr Rocking-Jones.

It worked and Joan was able to walk again.

Craig-y-nos and Joan Powell

Children on the balcony ( from left to right) Ann in bed on the left with Joan on the right. The girl in the middle is unknown.

Easter Sunday morning and I check my email. Surely not?.....I blink and stare at the name in the header field: Joan Powell.

I read the email with increasing incredulity. It's from Dean, Joan's son. Did I know her? he is trying to find out something of his mother's early history in a Welsh TB hospital. She died 10 years ago. She never talked about her childhood.

Joan and I were in beds next to each other on the balcony. Joan was a plaster patient and I had to lie on my left side. We were the youngest and the most seriously ill.

We became close friends.


Dean explains:"
My mother died 10 years ago and my father last month but whilst going through some papers I found a postcard from Craig-y-nos.

I mum never said anything about her time there but was she the girl in your photos? She was from just outside Neath.

.....She was born in November 1941so I do not know if that ties in with that girl.

The post card I have shows the hospital and the mountains behind. It is to her mum and aunt ivy at 5 grove lane, pennhiewtynol In Neath.

I know she did have a back operation and was in plaster.

The only photos I have are from when she was 19."

I assure him that it his his mother. He rings his brother, Simon, in Australia.

Within an hour an email comes winging in from half way around the world. n:


"I am the youngest child of Joan Powell (Oldham) and understand that you have been communicating with my brother, Dean.

My mothers life before she met my father has always been a closed book, although I do recall visiting the castle when I was young on the way to a holiday in Pembroke (we always went there despite living in Leicester). Having just seen the first photo of my mother as a child on the internet, it has opened a bit of a window. I was always afraid that my mothers childhood was filled with pain and sadness as she never talked about it (although she did mention that she had a friend called Ann). From the pictures, it looks like she had people around her and some degree of a childhood in a beautiful place.

Sadly, the effects of her childhood illness were a factor in her early passing but not before she had 40 years of happy married life and 2 sons who loved her very much. I do not know how mum was as a child, but as a mother, she was simply the best."

And a second email from Simon adds:

"I think that mum was affected a number of ways by her stay at the sanatorium. She was always very concerned with cleanliness and I know that this came from her being ill and I guess the environment she lived in. She obviously had a big operation and there was a scar running the length of her back (dad told me this and I could only see the bit at the top). Mum was tiny throughout her life and I guess little more than 5 foot tall (I am 6 foot 2 inches). Her loss of natural height caused her problems when her body began its normal shrinking process through age. I remember mum being emotional when we visited the castle. It was a beautiful sunny day and I remember mum saying that it used to belong to an opera singer (did it have a stage?).

When she left, I presume that she went to Leicester to be with her dad, Joseph. Joe had already remarried by this time (also to a lady called Joan) and produced a daughter (Glenys). Glen is still living near to Leicester and, as she has gotten older, is the spitting image."

I ring Dean. He wants to know what I can remember about Joan. I tell him Joan and I were best friends, that she helped me settle for the long haul - four years- in Craig-y-nos, that she went on to have a major operation on her back with a long and difficult recovery time and our ways parted because she was in a different section of Ward 2.


Joan gets a monthly hair wash.

It is just possible that Nurse Glenys Davies will remember Joan and I have promised Dean to contact her.

It makes me sad to think that Joan never talked about her experiences as a child but as I explained to Dean this was the case with the majority of us for it was such a strange world that we lived in, a cross between a boarding school, orphanage and prison for we were incarcerated in a remote Welsh castle for years on end with no contact with the outside world apart from visitors once a month.
How could anyone who had not been through that experience understand what we went through? and would they have been interested anyway ? I doubt it because it would have been so foreign to anything that they would ever have even read about.
So better to say nothing.
Also there was the taboo of TB, the most feared disease in Wales that you only spoke about in hushed whispers as if even talking about it might inflict the white plague on your family.

So I can understand Joan not wanting to talk about her Craig-y-nos experience.

BBC- dumbing down daytime TV?

Was the story of TB accurately portrayed in the BBC 1 TV programme A Hundred Years of Us?

Dr Carole Reeves, my co-author on the book" The Children of Craig-y-nos" and a medical historian with the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine UCL voices her concern.

A Hundred Years of Us
Broadcast on BBC 1, 22 March 2011, 9.15 am

Dr Reeves writes:
"This 45-minute programme, produced by Twenty Twenty Television for BBC1 to coincide with the census, is described as showing how Britain has changed in the past 100 years. A 10-minute feature on Craig-y-nos and tuberculosis right at the beginning of the programme ‘starred’ ex-patient, Barbara Pye, and ex-nurse, Valerie Brent. Both were excellent and it’s great that we were given the opportunity to contribute to this programme.

Both Ann and I spoke to the programme producers right at the beginning of the project and worked with them to give the historical background to tuberculosis and the Craig-y-nos story. We knew that the producers wanted to adopt a ‘positive’ slant on the issue of tuberculosis but weren’t prepared for the story to be whitewashed and spun to such an extent that it is simply untruthful. Viewers were told that tuberculosis in Britain has been almost totally eradicated due to the advent of the NHS in 1948 and the development of streptomycin. This was certainly not the information given to the programme producers but they chose to ignore it.

TB in Britain has NOT been eradicated. Indeed, it is on the increase. Since the mid-1980s, there has been a worldwide increase in TB of about 1 per cent. In Britain, the increase has been nearer to 2 per cent, and about 400 British people die of the infection every year. In 2009, 9040 cases of TB in Britain were diagnosed, up from 8621 in 2008. In some parts of London, the incidence of TB is equal to that in developing countries. Furthermore, there is a seriously scary increase of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.

The producers said that the programme needed to be positive and fairly simply presented for daytime BBC1 television viewers. Who do they think these simpletons are that they can’t cope with a factual history of TB over the last century? Of course TB is not the scourge that it was in 1911 when 1 death in every 8 was a TB death but presenting it untruthfully as a ‘problem gone away’, does a disservice to the BBC and emphasises what many people regretfully realise is an escalating devaluation of its independence and integrity."



I share Dr Reeves concern with the dumbing down of the BBC in order to obtain good daytime television ratings especially within a programme that is of such potential historical significance.

Craig-y-nos on BBC morning television

Well, did you see it? Our story was on telly. Well part of the story.....

This morning at 9.15am BBC TV launched new series on a Hundred Years of Britain - and we were there! I saw a photo of myself on the balcony with Miss White the teacher and so many of those that were in our book.

The star of this section, which lasted about ten minutes, was Barbara Pye one of the first people ever to be given stretomycin . She made a miracle cure and was home within 12 weeks.

Why Barbara? well this is how history is made: the researcher Nick Adey rang me and we talked at length about the subject. It was clear he was looking for a "happy angle". When I mentioned that there was an awful lot of dark stuff he said that it was daytime television and they didnt want to upset the viewers.

I mentioned Barbara Pye knowing she ticked all the tv boxes : glamorous, articulate, confident and with a good story and a happy ending.

And Barbara performed brilliantly sitting there between Michael Aspinall and Robert Winston in the BBC TV London studios.
I loved the way the BBC had reconstructed Dr Hubbard giving injections.

Valerie Brent also featured in the programme as one of only a couple of nurses still be alive who had worked at Craig-y-nos.

Nurse Glen is publicity shy or she would have been the ideal candidate having worked there for over 30 years.

BBC tv programme

I understand from Valerie Brent, retired Craig-y-nos nurse, that the BBC TV will be launching their new series on 50 years of the National Health Service on Monday March 28 at 9 am ( that's right! daytime television) .
Have yet to confirm with the producer and will post nearer the time with a reminder.

Barbara Pye had to go to London to do her interview and it must have been a very long and tiring day for her especially as she had recently come out of hospital. However Barbara is a key figure in the piece on TB because she took part in the original drug trial of streptomycin and was one of the few women in Craig-y-nos to receive the drug in 1948.

Comments- Craig-y-nos

Just checking out some of the comments and I have noticed that amongst all the spam I am getting stuff from young people who are using the blog as a resource for their assignments.
That's good.

BBC TV filming Craigynos

Valerie Brent former nurse from the 1940s tells me she was interviewed last week for the new BBC series which looks at 50 years of the National Health Service.
Also interviewed was Barbara Pye ,one of the first people to receive streptomycin.
" It was snowing when we got to Craig-y-nos - just like old times."

I got the impression Valerie had a ball with the television people and they gave her a bouquet of flowers!

Valerie said:" I really surprised myself too! There were so many stories to tell."

Earlier in the week they interviewed Carole Reeves, Outreach Historian with the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine,UCL and co-author of The Children of Craig-y-.nos.

"The Children if Craig-y-nos" by Ann Shaw and Carole Reeves, price £9.99, paperback is available from Amazon.co.uk



Comment
Enjoyed reading/following your page.Please keep it coming. Cheers!

Craig-y-nos and Sully

Craig-y-nos and Sully – punishment regimes




Craig-y-nos Castle, former children's TB sanatorium and home of opera diva Adelina Patti


Sully hospital

Philip Cox recalls the different punishment regimes he experienced as a child patient in both Craig-y-nos and Sully during the 1950s.


“In Craig-y-nos they tied you to the bed. In Sully if you got out of bed and you weren’t supposed to, then they took your pyjamas trousers off you. I hated that!”

He went into Craig-y-nos in 1953 as a three and a half year old and later transferred to Sully for his lung operation.

He was amazed to discover the blogs the other day while trawling through the internet.

“ I couldn’t believe my eyes. Any minute I expected to come across a photo of myself!”

Now he has sent away for a copy of the book, “The Children of Craig-y-nos” from Amazon.

Despite his poor start in life he went on to become a rugby champion in school and won numerous medals for sport including throwing the javelin.

Philip lives in Pontypool with his family.

Changed times: to-day Craig-y-nos Castle is a hotel specialising in weddings and Sully has been converted into upmarket apartments.

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

Barbara as a young woman in Craig-y-nos in 1948. She was one of the first to take part in the trials for streptomycin.


Barbara Pye ( left) with her daughter-in-law


Dr Carole Reeves, medical historian with The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, UCL, co-author of "The Children of Craig-y-nos" arriving for book launch.


Valerie Brent, former nurse ( left) with Beryl Richards ( nee Rowlands) arriving at Craig-y-nos Castle.


The BBC are filming at Craig-y-nos this week as part of their new series on the Changing Face of Britain.

They will be focusing on Barbara Pye who was one of the first to take part in the trials for the life-saving drug streptomycin in 1948, Valerie Brent who worked as a nurse there for two years in the 1940s and Carole Reeves, medical historian with the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, UCL ( and my co-author of "The Children of Craig-y-nos") who will be providing the historical context.

The programme will be shown next Spring.

"The Children of Craig-y-nos" by Ann Shaw and Carole Reeves, published in paperback by The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine , UCL, price £9.99p. It can be ordered from all good bookshops or online from Amazon.com

BBC 1 TV and Craig-y-nos

BBC TV are doing a new series for next Spring on the Changing Face of Britian.

One of the themes is health and they will be featuring Craig-y-nos Castle when they cover TB and the introduction of the life-saving drugs.

Filming will take place shortly.

Book review- Dr Tony Jewell, Chief Medical Officer for Wales

"The Children of Craig-y-nos"was short listed for the Open Book Awards 2010, organised by the Medical Journalists Association.
( from left to right) The team - designer Marc Riley, Carole Reeves, Ann Shaw and Malcolm Shaw who digitised all the images, at the presentation ceremony in the Wellcome Trust Library.


"The Children of Craig-y-nos"
by Ann Shaw and Carole Reeves
published by the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL
price £9.99

Book review by Dr Tony Jewell, Chief Medical Officer for Wales


Craig-y-nos (Rock of the night) Castle, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons in South Wales, was the home of the world famous opera singer Adelina Patti.

After her death in 1919 it became a TB Sanatorium, mainly for children and young adults. This is an excellent book – a product of a community oral history.

Ann Shaw launched an internet blog in 2006 to collect stories from ex patients and staff. She spent four years as an inpatient between 9 to 14 years of age and was overwhelmed by the response to her blog.

She was able to collect 100 personal stories and over 1200 photographs within a year. This book is a product of this initiative between Ann and Carole Reeves an outreach historian from the Wellcome Trust.

It recounts the decades from the 1920s through to the 1950s through the eyes of the children, teenagers and staff and is richly illustrated with photographs. It is cleverly set in each historical period with reference to the developing
understanding of tuberculosis, its treatment and the public health impact.

Before the modern period of effective combined drug treatments for TB the prevailing wisdom was to isolate TB patients in sanatoria and expose them to “fresh mountain air”.

The stories recounted of these young and very ill children being made to sleep on the balcony, exposed to wind, cold and sometimes snow is hard to fathom from the comfort of the 21st century and with notions of the UN Rights of a child!




“The snow falls thick and fast, covering the bottom of the beds, then the whole bed and finally the lockers. We put our beds alongside the wall. This gives us some extra protection. Our beds are igloo-like, with bits of old tarpaulin tied with string, which is carefully hoarded for occasions like this”

“Friday morning: I am ill and have been given five big white tablets and told to keep quiet. I think I have a cold in the tummy. Snow covers half my bed and my slippers are soaking from paddling through the wet snow to get inside” ( Ann Shaw as a child on the balcony with Nurse Glenys Davies and again at the Patients Reunion )

Remember that some of these children were confined to the sanatorium from a very young age with very little continuing contact with their families, estranged by the institutional regime there but also the geographical isolation and logistical difficulty and cost to visit.




“I was admitted at nine months of age in 1927, so I grew up in the Glass Conservatory.
My mother used to visit me twice a year, not that I knew her anyway. The family was “on the parish” and that is all they were allowed.

They thought I had TB of the stomach. I was always on the veranda. We would stay there all night with a bit of tarpaulin over the cot. There was no schooling, I can’t remember drawing or writing on paper.

Twenty years ago, I was diagnosed with coeliac disease and needed only to be on a gluten free
diet. Instead I spent the first five years of my life in a TB sanatorium” (Winnie Gardiner (pictured above left ) as a child in the Glass Conservatory and (right) at the Patients Reunion in Craigynos Castle.)

These harrowing accounts included physical restraint such as tying young children to their cots and beds, physical, emotional and sexual abuse is all recorded in the extracts.

The other side to this book is its insight into tuberculosis as a major public health problem, the various surgical treatments culminating in the discovery of effective drug treatments such as with streptomycin. It also traces the journey of a health system from a TB sanatorium run by the King Edward VII Welsh National Memorial Association (WNMA) which was established in 1910 with a remit to prevent, treat and eradicate TB in Wales into an NHS hospital and eventual closure in 1986. Local Authorities had a role too as the 1921 Public Health (TB) Act made it obligatory for all County Borough Councils to provide treatment for people with TB. When the WNMA was disbanded in 1948, at the inception of the NHS, it funded 2600 beds, seventy doctors, 580 nurses and 830 domestic staff, a mobile x ray, research laboratory and a Chair of TB at the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff. This book is a compelling read from its stories from patients, many of whom remain traumatised by the memories,their social situation and difficult family circumstances; by its insight into TB which remains a global scourge and it’s tracing the creation of the WNMA and development into the new NHS in the late 1940s. However it is the indomitable human spirit which shines through.

The Preface written by Clive Rowlands former Captain and Coach of Welsh Rugby:

Clive at home

“I was admitted as an eight year old, in 1947. That winter was the snowiest since 1814 and among the coldest on record, but our beds were wheeled out onto the balcony so that our lungs would benefit from the sharp, icy mountain air...Although I was one of five children, I don’t think I suffered as much as other youngsters because my sister, in her early twenties, was already in Craig-y-nos and I was allowed to see her every day. I also benefited from her weekly visitors because children’s visiting was normally only once a month. However I wasn’t aware that my sister was terminally ill and she was later sent home to die....My most abiding memory however is of receiving a rugby ball....and being punished for kicking it through a glass door. I was put in a straightjacket for a week.”

"The Children of Craig-y-nos" is available from Amazon Online or ordered from any good bookshop.

Death of Dulcie Oltersdorf

I have just been informed of the death of Dulcie Oltersdorf who went into Craig-y-nos in 1948.


Dulcie Oltersdorf ( centre ) and friends in a rowing boat on the lake at Craig-y-nos. This was strictly against the sanatorium regime but the gardeners colluded with the young women.


Dulcie Oltersdorf (Lewis) – Blood tests and blunt needles

I was on bed rest at home for a year, waiting for a bed in Craig-y-nos. The night before going in I wanted to go to the local dance and my mother let me. She shouldn’t have, but I met my boyfriend that night, a German prisoner-of-war. He used to visit me in Craig-y-nos. I was admitted to the Annexe three days before my twenty-first birthday in 1948.

I had to lie flat on my back and do nothing. That was the treatment. Well, after three months I had an X-ray and they
said, ‘You will have to lie on your back for another three months, maybe six months.’ I was determined that I would get better and if that was the treatment then I would do it! Sister Outram was very strict.

We used to close the windows at night and she would come in first thing in the morning, fling them wide open and we would eat our breakfasts shivering with cold. It was for
our own good. She told my mother that a cure depended on the ability of the patient to settle down and do what they were told.

I was able to settle quickly. We had regular blood tests and we used to hate it when Dr Hubbard did them because she
always used blunt needles. Afterwards, our arms would be covered in bruises.

I was happy and comfortable at Craig-y-nos. It was a good hospital.
When I was discharged I married my boyfriend. We have been together now for fifty-eight years and have never had a cross word!

Extract from The Children of Craig-y-nos by Ann Shaw and Carole Reeves, paperback £9.99, available from Amazon online or Waterstones

Valerie Brent- 80th birthday

(from left to right) Valerie Brent, former nurse at Craig-y-nos, Cynthia Mullan, director of Sleeping Giant oral history charity and Ann Shaw , former patient at the first patients reunion.


Valerie, who worked as a nurse in Craig-y-nos during the 1940s, rang to say that she celebrated her 80th birthday last Tuesday with a big party.

In fact she has a month of celebrations coming up culminating in a special dinner with her daughter and son-in-law at Celtic Manor hotel ( of Ryder Cup fame) when they celebrate their Pearl wedding and Valerie her 80th birthday.


Quite a party girl is our Val.

Mari Friend ( nee Jenkins) - sad news

Girls on the balcony of Craig-y-nos Castle. Mari is in the middle of the back row and Ann ( Shaw nee Rumsey) is on the far right.

Many of you will remember Mari Friend ( nee Jenkins) so it was with great sadness that I received this email from her son Chris:

Hi Ann ,
I regret to inform you that my mum, Mari Friend, passed away last Sunday (July 25th). As you know she was suffering from Bronchiolitis and Rheumatoid Arthritis for many years and had fought these two conditions bravely.

Unfortunately in the last few months she was diagnosed with lymphoma and her chest were not able to stand any treatment.

The last two weeks saw a rapid deterioration especially the last three days.
She died peacefully on a hospital ward where she was well known and treated as family.
I'm sorry to pass on this news with an e-mail but we're unable to find a number for you.
Chris"




And 50 years later.... Ann and Mari on the balcony of Ann's home Bridge of Allan, Scotland overlooking the mountains to the north..

Mari and I shared some time together in Craig-y-nos in the early 1950’s and even after she left we kept in contact for a number of years. She came on holiday to our farm Ty-Llangenny , outside Crickhowell and I stayed in Ynysygwas, Cwmavon.
Later we shared the same hostel accommodation, Bourne and Hollingsworth in Gower St where Mari worked as a sales assistant, and I had a job as a secretary to a publishing house in Russell Square.

After that our paths separated: I went off to work in Switzerland and Iceland and Mari got married.
We met up again a few years ago on the Craig-y-nos project following a request I put in the local paper “ The South Wales Evening Post” asking for the “ lost children of Craig-y-nos”.
Mari came forward and that is when we discovered that Mari had this amazing collection of photographs from her time and her sister’s time in Craig-y-nos .

This collection formed a substantial part of our book “The Children of Craig-y-nos” which I co-authored with Dr Carole Reeves, Outreach Historian with The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine.
I am deeply grateful to Mari for her contribution. She was always such a cheerful character both as a child and in her later years even though suffering from poor health.

Mari will be sadly missed.

Petition to save Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine, UCL

Carole Reeves, my co-author on "The Children of Craig-y-nos" project without whom there would not have been a printed book now has a new battle on her hands: to save her Department.

Incredible though it seems they are planning to close the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London, where Carol is the Outreach Historian.

She has launched a blog and campaign to save it: friendsofwtchom.blogspot.com/

And this is the link to the online petition. Please help her and sign.


www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/petition-sign.cgi?WTCHOMs

Short list- Wellcome library

(Photo: Dan Tsantilis)

Here's a photo of "The Children of Craig-y-nos" team short listed for book award- medical journalist of the year, general category,-at the presentation ceremony in the Wellcome Library at the Wellcome Trust.

They are ( from left to right) book designer Marc Riley, co-authors Dr Carole Reeves, Outreach Historian, and Ann Shaw with Malcolm Shaw who digitised and restored all the photos used in the book.