1940s war-time health care for children in north London

Food supplements for children

The Government was good to children in the war. Pre-school children had allowances of cod-liver oil and orange juice, which my mother had to collect from the local clinic. The orange juice tasted wonderful and the cod-liver oil 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.

Once at school, there was free milk.

the school clinic and dental surgery

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 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 it off and tell one 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.)

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.

This website Join me in the 1900s is also known as Join me in the 1900's and is © Pat Cryer.