[jambutty]

I suffered from all the usual children’s ailments like chicken pox, measles etc but also suffered a lot with tonsillitis. Before antibiotics my mum’s cure was a bandage soaked in vinegar or meths wrapped around the throat. The stink! Fennings Fever Powders or half an Aspirin crushed in a tablespoon of milk helped to keep the fever down. I remember my doctor telling my mum that children’s medicines should be taken in milk and never on an empty stomach. Eventually I lost my tonsils at Accy Vic. In those days they didn’t realise that the tonsils were the body’s second line of defence against oral germs so infected tonsils were whipped out.

For severe colds and flu Vicks or Camphorated oil was rubbed into the chest and back to help clear a bunged up nose whilst sleeping.

During the war I lived in Blackpool after being bombed out of Manchester and I got cod liver oil on a spoon followed by a sweet which made it worth having. We suffered the cod liver oil because of the sweet. We also got calcium tablets, about 500 in a round tin box, to be taken one a day. They had a hint of sweetness about them so we liked them. Once a week we were taken to a special room, stripped down to underpants, told to put on very dark goggles and had to walk around a room that was bathed in UV light for a while. It was supposed to encourage the body to produce vitamin D because fruit like oranges, tangerines and grapefruit just were not available. Yet somehow they appeared at Xmas because our Xmas presents were an apple, an orange, a few sweets and a small toy or some sort.

At school we got half a pint of milk every day at dinnertime. The bottles had a thick neck into which was the cardboard top with a centre hole partially punched out where we could insert a straw. Sometimes the hole had not been punched out enough and instead of a hole appearing when pushed, the whole top got punched in spraying milk far and wide.

I also remember that thick black malt stuff. Not bad really.