1940s war-time health care for children in
north London
Food supplements for children
Bottles of orange juice and cod-liver oil,
distributed to pre-school children in WW2.
Photographed in Nidderdale Museum.
The Government was good to children in World War Two in spite of the
severity of rationing. Children had
their own ration books which were more generous than those of adults. Pre-school children had allowances
of cod-liver oil and orange juice, and my mother had to collect mine from the local
clinic.
The orange juice tasted wonderful but the cod-liver oil was absolutely disgusting.
I wouldn't have any of it; so my mother, with the ignorance of her background,
just gave me extra orange juice 'to make up'.
Clearly the refusal to take cod-liver
oil was widespread, as it soon became available as 'cod liver oil and malt',
a totally acceptable brown sticky substance that tasted like toffee and had
to be spooned out of a large jar.
My first years at school were before the National Health Service, but
there was a free school clinic. Ours was in Mill Hill. The dental surgery
was there. I had to have a lot of fillings in my teeth. I'm not sure why, as
there were no sweets to be had during the war and afterwards they were
rationed. Anyway, the point was that the drill was a slow one
and it hurt dreadfully. There were no injections and the only way that the
staff had to deal with complaints about the pain was to laugh them off and
say what a baby one was.
There were cursory health checks at school. These were mainly to look at
children's throats, feel their glands and check their heads for lice.
The doctor
My early childhood was before the National Health Service and I well remember
my mother taking me to the doctor's surgery clutching her
half crown in payment.
That was equivalent to twelve and a half pence in today's money, but it was
worth a lot then. (As a benchmark, my father bought our house in Edgware (on
a mortgage) in 1938 for 300 or so pounds.)
If you have an old photo which would illustrate
the way of life described on this page, I would very much appreciate a copy.
Pat Cryer
It always seemed to me to be a waste of time going to the doctor. He always
seemed to take the money and give the advice to come back in so many days if
things were no better. I suppose other people must have fared differently. There
were no antibiotics available to the general public, and when I had measles
my ears were extremely inflamed - but there was nothing the doctor could do.
My mother always said that my deafness in later life stemmed from that time.
Apparently, though, my mother did once take comfort from his words, "These things
come Mrs Clarke, and, thank God, they go". In most cases, he was right.