Childcare, School Clinics and Dr Black

Her mission in life was to rid every child of their tonsils...

By Val Newman

Medical provision, childcare and healthcare were provided from a variety of locations across the estate, for example in my early days National Dried Milk and Orange juice were collected from one of the outbuilding attached to the St Helier Arms. 

Babies were weighed either in the back part of Boots the Chemist or at the clinic which in those days was in the  old, black wooden building located where the new doctors surgery stands now.

There were a number of family doctors with whom you registered, indeed the estate was not short of surgeries. My family were with Drs O'Farrell and Navin (or Dr Mary as she was known) and their surgery was located in a house in Green Wrythe Lane opposite the Waltham Road turning.

Dr Ralph O'Farrell was born in County Cork and obviously had kissed the blarney stone at a very early age. He was lovely and had a gentle Irish accent and it would seem that his favourite prescription was that 'cure all' cherry linctus or M & B tablets( the forerunner of today's antibiotics).

He had a young Australian doctor in the practice as I remember whose name was, I think, Dr Quinn - but I stand to be corrected on that one. The wonderful Dr Mary Navin followed Dr Quinn. She smoked like a trooper and used a cigarette holder frequently brushing the dropped ash off of the prescription she had just written. She was beautifully spoken and somewhat daunting but when things were really bad she was amazing.

The most feared phrase for any child was to be told to go to Dr Black's clinic.  This almost certainly meant that something needed to be 'cut off' and as it appeared her mission in life was to rid every child of their tonsils this was frequently the case. Her clinic was located in Rochester Road down near the ponds in Carshalton.

'Nitty Nora' visited the schools regularly in an attempt to control fleas and head lice and infrequently a doctor would arrive at school and shove an enlarged lolly stick down your throat with the accompanying demand of 'say ahhh' and if you managed not to be sick and depending on the noise you made you were either sent back to class or given your marching orders for Rochester Road. The school dentist would also arrive, I think on an annual basis, again poke around your mouth and then, if necessary,refer you to the dental clinic at St Helier's.

For the most part those condemned to having their tonsils and/or adenoids removed were sent to Queen Mary's Hospital, which in those days was located in Fountain Drive, Carshalton Beeches. This was a huge hospital catering for long term sick children, those suffering from TB and the effects of polio, along with those children with birth defects. The 'tonsils' ward was obviously for short term patients and I can remember being admitted on a Sunday and feeling totally abandoned. It had the traditional hospital smell and ruled over by the ward sister and the Matron. I was given the most foul tasting liquid which was apparently designed to dry out the mucous from the back of the throat and something to make me drowsy and then transferred by a sort of 'milk float' where we were loaded on shelves, one on top of the other and taken to the operating theatre. I remember waking up with an atrocious sore throat and eventually was given some ice cream to soothe the pain. I was in there for one week and felt sorry for those who had their adenoids removed as they had to stay for a bit longer as did the children who had had eye operations as they were not allowed to move their heads. However, these were short stay wards and it was in the 'open air TB wards' where patients stayed for months on end and the wards where polio children were maintained on iron lungs.

There was a severe outbreak of polio one summer and several children in Welbeck Road were thought to have caught it - it was frightening- there was a general air of relief when we were called to be given the Salk vaccine - I know it was called vaccine but I seem to recall taking it on a sugar cube - again apologies if the brain is misleading me.

By the time the new clinic opened at the Circle in the late 60's things had certainly moved forward.

Family planning seemed to be administered at a clinic base in Shotfield, Wallington. I remember going there with a friend and we both wore engagement rings - no we weren't engaged but you would not be seen unless you were in a 'firm' relationship. There might have been a few less quick rushes up the aisle in St Peter's if that had not been the case!!!