Doctors, illness and death

I’ve told you about the dentist, so I might as well describe the other scary man – the doctor. In the 1950s there were no health centres and everyone was allocated a family doctor who always treated you each time. We had two doctors though, a father and son. Both seemed very tall, skinny, well dressed in suits and spoke with ‘posh’ accents. The father was ill-tempered, impatient and gave the impression that he detested having to deal with you and didn’t really believe you were ill in the first place. The son was the opposite, so I prayed that it was him who would treat me.

Home visits were easily arranged then. No dragon on reception to give you the third degree or a three-day delay for a visit. Sometimes we attended their surgery, which was a big old house similar to the dentist’s. It was their home but they had converted rooms for waiting and treatment. I seem to remember the waiting room had dark wooden panelling around the walls and similar battered old magazines and Rupert Bear annuals that the dentist had for entertainment.

Most childhood illnesses simply involved a few quick checks on your vital functions whilst the thermometer was slipped under your tongue. The urge to bite or chew it was almost irresistible. Doctors’ instruments were not as scary as the dentists. He had a round mirror with a hole in the middle, strapped to his head. I’ve no idea what function that had. Sometimes he’d shine a small torch into your mouth and eyes, poke a stick onto your tongue and of course, the cold stethoscope would be clapped onto your chest and back. It was an incredible relief when he finally declared you were going to live and informed mum that you had some weird sounding condition called measles, mumps, chicken pox or tonsillitis. The best part was hearing that you had to miss school for a week or two - yesssss.

As I write this, it doesn’t seem scary at all now. I guess it was the fear of illness and death that frightened me. As a young child, it seemed that these two scary monsters were always lurking around the corner. Although I didn’t experience a death until much older, I was often aware of it as a serious threat to my well-being! Death seemed like a sort of eternal, dreamless sleep – a blackness, a nothingness. The concept of non-existence or permanent loss of parents, family or friends was hard to accept. Promises of living in heaven with God were no less scary. He was an old man with a beard that I had never met before. No substitute for mum and dad.

I remember when very young, thinking about this ‘death’ state and becoming overwhelmingly sad and scared. One time I burst into floods of tears. When mum asked what was wrong, I told her ‘I didn’t want to die’ and sobbed uncontrollably. She must have been mystified by this outburst but consoled me with hugs and assurance and ‘Don’t be silly, you’re not going to die.’ Although I am in my 50s now, those two monsters (illness and death) occasionally stalk me. I don’t fear death or the possibility of oblivion much now, but I’ve seen so many friends and loved ones suffer illness and eventual death, that the thought of them and leaving or losing loved ones permanently, still causes some anguish. Mum’s hugs and assurances of eternal life don’t work anymore.