Autobiography

I used to have ultra violet light treatment and
wore huge goggles with green lenses to protect
my eyes. I still remember the clinic in Church
Road in Manor Park, close to where my Gran
lived, where I would go for my ‘sunshine’. I
was also in Black Notley Sanatorium in
Braintree, Essex for many months.
The room I was in looked like a two car garage
with two beds in it. The other sick children and
I were wheeled outside on to an open walkway
whenever the weather permitted. During and
after the war they would put patients with
tuberculosis on the Thames embankment
because they believed the cure was fresh air,
which we now know could do more harm than
good.
Very early one morning I was awoken by a
commotion. A curtain had been pulled
between me, and Jimmy, a little boy about my
age, in the next bed. I couldn’t see much but I
did hear a man calling out “hurry, hurry, over
here, over here.” Suddenly, a bright light was
turned on the other side of the curtain and I
could see shadows of people through it. There
was a lot of noise and people coming and going
and I could hear the bed being wheeled from
the room.
The light went out and the sliding doors, which
were on wheels, were pulled back into place.
There were no windows in the room and but
for a small blue light in the ceiling, the room
was plunged back into darkness again.
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