Memories of the San

LWC HEALTHCARE Memories of the San

Three Sternians share stories from their confinement in the SAN

Ihave many memories of the San. We used to go there for eye tests and the same chart was used for everyone. All you had to do was recite OLTZBDN, (I remember it to this day), and you passed! I don’t think Joe Hazell was really that daft, but it made life easy for him.

A stay in the San was not something one looked forward to. You had to be quite sick before you were sent there, and in the early 50s antibiotics were not in common use, so if, as my case, a chest infection was the problem one just had to let nature take its course, the only treatment being inhalations of Friar’s balsam three times a day. The food was not good, but it was expected that it would be eaten. It was cooked and served by Mrs Hazell to whom we had to be very polite.

Breakfast consisted only of a large bowl of very thick porridge, this really was too much to stomach, and a lot found its way to the loo! So much on one occasion that it caused a blockage, which mystified the maintenance man. Once in the San, there was little one could do other than read. No radio, no TV, indeed there was only one TV set in the whole college then, owned by J A Chadwick, known as Mr Jack, a master in Junior House.

Sandy Henderson (Headmaster) used to visit once a week and do the rounds, something I think we all appreciated. It could be a lonely place, but we managed to keep cheerful. There were usually one or more comedians among the inmates who would entertain us well into the night.

MIKE BECKLEY (1956, Sutton, A840)

Joe and Ma Hazell ran the sanatorium for 25 years. This photo was taken in 1949

Now it seems a lifetime ago, but then perhaps the summer of 1964 really does, as L. P. Hartley suggests, belong to a ‘foreign country’. It must have been one evening of that summer, when I had gone to Matron feeling unwell, or maybe I was sent, only to find myself within a very short period of time en route for the San.

In those days there was something dreaded about it. A place of austerity peopled with unsmiling, visiting doctors and presided over by the San Matron who oversaw discipline and order amongst the iron bedsteads, the tin trolleys containing unknown medications, the starkly white, tiled walls, lavatorial in appearance, and the air of hospitalised hush.

I was placed in isolation, in a small room, off the main ‘ward’ where I was only dimly aware of the comings and goings of any other patients. Encouraged to drink quantities of water, occasionally very diluted orange squash, I can remember very little beyond a daily visit from a doctor and the ministrations of Matron who, I recall, far from being the dragon we imagined, was, in fact, exceptionally kind.

Of my illness, I know nothing. That my parents, who at no time showed any interest whatsoever in my education, came to visit one weekend now strikes me as of some significance. After some weeks I was clearly deemed well enough to sit my GCE O-levels, all of which I took in the San, the papers delivered by the subject masters who, I imagine, carried out the invigilation.

Medical Centre it most certainly was not. That said, it belonged to a period and served its purpose. For that I am grateful.

LANCE HATTATT (1966, School, A397)

It was a global pandemic 63 years before Covid-19 that put me in the San in 1957. ‘Asian flu’ caused an estimated 1 to 4 million deaths worldwide, including about 33,000 in the UK. It hit LWC in late September. I kept a diary in those days, and on 25 September

I recorded the first of my friends who caught it: “Pope and Evans went up to the San with Asian flu”. I wrote two days later “the flu” bug is on the rampage – San is full, South Dormitory [in School House] getting full [as an overflow ward]. Only 5 prefects left in School House.”

I caught the bug myself on the 28th and was sent to South Dorm, and later the San. It was seven days before I could return to lessons, writing “Back to schoolwork again. There were only 4 out of 16 in Maths yesterday – 9 today.” It was not until 18 October that I noted “Flu is just about over now, thank goodness!’

When one was confined in the San with a handful of others at most, it was a big event when someone new arrived or an old-timer left. There was a random and curious mixing of boys who would not normally have spent time together. In the absence of a lesson timetable and sporting activities, it was the three meals which gave some structure to the day. The routine included waking up around 7.30 am, having breakfast, (sometimes it was porridge, bread & marmalade, sometimes we were given grapes), then either getting dressed or staying in bed according to one’s state of health or inclination.

After dinner (the meal in the middle of the day) it was usual to have an hour’s rest on our beds. There was a light evening meal (“tea”) and ‘lights out’ varied a bit but was around 7.30 – 8.30pm.

Our temperatures and pulses were measured daily, and if those were satisfactory and we felt alright we might go out for a walk. Otherwise, we were often sitting in or on our beds, reading, writing, talking, telling stories, or snoozing. We played various games, including chess, Battleships, and card games – mainly Pontoon. There were also jigsaw puzzles to tackle.

The radio was a great source of entertainment. Everyone’s favourite was Journey into Space and Hancock’s Half Hour. On Radio Luxembourg, with its unstable signal that faded and came back, we listened to the pop songs of the day, such as (in 1958) Stupid Cupid by Connie Francis, Bird Dog by the Everly Brothers and Born Too Late by The Ponytails.

Among other activities, on 11 October 1958 “In the evening Charlie Elsden gave us all a film show with his projector and boxes of slides, in colour, of Switzerland and France. The screen was a sheet pinned up. I rather enjoyed that.”

Looking back, we boys received sympathetic and very good care from the Sister in charge, supplemented by visitor doctors. We were as happy in the San as one could be when ill. Indeed, when not feeling too bad, it was sometimes (as I wrote once) “great fun!”

“It was a global pandemic 63 years before

Covid-19”

GUY CONSTERDINE (1960, School, A031)