Gulson Road Hospital

I bet you've some more to add to this folks! I had a burst appendix removed in Gulson Rd Hospital in 1970. It was a strange experience! People complain about hospital food today, but the 2nd morning after the op, I was allowed breakfast. When it came it was a bowl of cornflakes. No milk, just cornflakes. And to eat them? A knife. There was a television room, too, off the end of the ward. Two grotty old TVs in it, but I never worked out how you were supposed to use them. The room was full of chairs! They were stacked and packed in there, you'd have needed to carry out about 50 chairs to get to the TV sets, which would been a wonderful idea - not! - after an operation. It can't be as bad as that these days!

Yes Keith I can add to that, you woke up and got breakfast, no milk also a knife, thats it!!! You woke up a lot of people I know have gone in and not awakend to get breakfast or come out a lot worse off than they went in. I could give you a list if you want. To me the food was fine, its the care that wasn't.

My best memory of Gulson Rd hospital was during the tax office building fire, 1964. I saw nursing staff involved with an evacuation procedure. The fire was huge & threatened the hospital. I thank God that it didn't.

I was in Gulson Road hospital in 1949, I was 6 years of age at the time, I had appendicitis, anyway they removed my appendix and eventually I went home, but two days later I collapsed at home and was readmitted because THEY HAD LEFT A SWAB inside of me! Anyway recently I have been in hospital here with pancreatitis and when being examined by the consultant surgeon he remarked on my appendx scar, I said "yes it is from 1949" he said "yes it looks like a 1949 scar, what did they use, a blunt breadknife" ? LOL LOL. PeterW

As far as the Gulson Rd hospital is concerned, I hated the place. No compassion or care for us kids, it was a production line to get through as fast as possible, never mind the pain. At least Keresley and Whitley isolation were a bit more caring, not very compassionate but caring. Philip, I remember standing by the Greenman in Lower Ford St watching the flames from that fire, I would not go any closer. The flames had illuminated the whole sky. The tax offices had also been used for storage of blankets and mattresses for the hospitals. Also I remember people cheering, they thought their back tax demands would go up in smoke - some hope, lol.

I had a minor nose operation at Gulson Road in the early 1960s, cricket ball damage. There was a broken window pane above my bed, had to attempt to block it up with newspapers. Did anyone go to the dances in the nurses' home? Matron would stand at the bottom of the stairs to make sure that no males even tried to get to the sleeping quarters. I'm sure that many of you know that Gulson Road was originally called Brick Kiln Lane.

And of course, it was a former workhouse, wasn't it? And yes I have a large scar, too, with a thick part where they had a put a large drain in. Makes you wonder what else they did while they were at it!! I remember going into Keresley to have my tonsils out when I was bout 6 or 7. A nurse came around with a spoon of what looked like blackcurrant jam, so of course all us kids in the ward eagerly sucked it off the spoon. It was revolting! Incredibly bitter, so it must have been an anaesthetic. The surgeon had either slipped or something, too, and cut off my uvula, and it has affected my voice all my life since. My parents, though, had paid privately to go to a consultant named Kander, and were very angry when they discovered that he hadn't done the op, despite their having paid him for it. I remember the Matron coming round too, and she spoke to nearly every kid on the ward. My God, she was a dragon! Dark blue dress uniform, with a huge white, er, folded tablecloth head-dress. The nurses were terrified of her, and obviously glad when she departed. Going back to Gulson Rd Hospital, is it still there?

The hospital is still there but only out patients. The child welfare services are centred there nowadays.

What an austere place for that! I bet there are a few ghouls and ghosts wandering those corridors. Thanks Philip Here's a little something you may not be aware of. In the days when watches and clocks had fusee chains, an 'enterprising' gentleman in Christchurch, Hants, hit on a cunning plan. He got the workhouses to agree to let their children work for him, making fusee chains. Smaller children (up to a point) made smaller chains, some little thicker than a hair. They had no optical aids, and had to rely on manual dexterity; they were paid virtually nothing, but the workhouses got about 3/4d per foot of chain. Each link was a figure of eight with two holes, like a bicycle chain, with a single link sandwiched by two, then one, etc. They had to punch each link out, then assemble them with wire which was riveted by hand. As they got older and less manually dexterous, they were given bigger chains to do; the biggest ones, for large clocks, were made by women often at home, and this practice continued till 1914. He made a lot of money, and the kids had to make around 3 feet of chain per day, often not being allowed to eat unless they did. He sold the chain to watch and clock makers in Coventry, London, and Prescot (although the latter discontinued fusees around 1895). So you could argue that the Coventry - indeed, the English - watch industry was partly founded on slave labour. Children also made silver dials, having to punch out and solder on, by hand and eye, the gold figures, and often flower or other decorations in the engraved centre. Older kids were taught to do the fine engraving; by the time they were 18 or 20, their eyesight wasn't good enough, and they were discarded. The 'good old days', methinks!

Gulson was a very haunted hospital by all accounts. The babies' isolation ward was one. It was mad up of individual cubicles for infants to be nursed. You could be sitting in them feeding a baby and all of a sudden the metal coat hangers on the pole would start swinging for no reason (no draughts in the room). On the children's ward there was a small room at the end looking onto Gulson Road. It was used for extra patients at busy times. Staff commented on how they felt extremely uneasy when they were in that room and felt as if someone was watching them. Some children actually pleaded to be moved from the room after one night in it. On one occasion when I was on a late shift, a child went missing from the ward, children at the other end of the ward said they had seen him looking through the panes of glass in the doors of the room of the main ward. Myself and another nurse stood by the children and twice saw a face appear at the door. Just as we were making our way down to the room someone called they had found the missing child, he had been hiding INSIDE a bedside locker at the opposite end of the ward. Out of curiosity we went to investigate the face at the door. The door was locked and was the only way in or out of the room and after tea every evening the 6 small tables that the children sat at for meals were pushed up against the doors. On another occasion 3 children who were in beds by the room asked to be moved, they said they didn't like it where they were. As we were chatting to them the double doors from the same room that the tables were pushed against, both opened into the ward pushing the tables a few inches. Again there was no one in the room, and the windows were firmly closed. Needless to say we moved the children on that occasion. Can't explain the face at the door or why the doors opened.

I was a five year old surgery patient there in 1959 and never witnessed anything spooky, despite being of a nervous disposition. In fact I never felt more secure in my life. In those days the boys and girls wards were segregated, with the girls being nearest the 'verandah' as it was called. The verandah was used as playroom during the day and not just by us patients!

I only attended the Gulson Road Hospital for physiotherapy in the late 90s. The guys on reception were always very friendly on arrival. Now only the Gulson Road Clinic still stands home of CAMHS. I have added some photos of the hospital to my gallery. They were taken by my husband just before it was demolished. Paula

Thank you for the new photos RosieUK. My one and only experience at GRH. was not a very pleasant one when my grandmother had to take me there with head lice (from school) She had to comb my hair with one of those horrible fine metal combs which makes your eyes water, having long hair, and she told me years later most of the class were there too. Please don't laugh folks, how many of you had to pay a visit there?

Well! Some spooky experiences. My wife was admitted to GRH about 1966 with toxemia. She had excellent treatment, no complaints whatsoever. I went there twice a week as an outpatient to recieve treatment for sciatica. Very painful and I could hardly walk. The treatment room was up two flights of stairs. Les

I had to attend the Gulson Rd eye dept in the 50s. I was born with a squint, or lazy eye as they called it then. About every two weeks my mum had to take me there and they would put drops in my eyes and then I had to sit at a machine and look at slides and tell the nurse when the bird went into the cage and various other visual tests. Afterwards I would have to go back to school and I was unable to read the blackboard as my pupils were still enlarged. The National Health spectacles were really ugly with wire that went over your ears. Sometimes they would put a patch over one eye made from lint sticking plaster. Eventually I had an op in Bramcote Hospital to correct the squint which worked and I was able to leave off the awful NHS specs and I no longer got called four eyes at school.