All in a lifetime
The Milk Churn
All in a life time sets out to recall in a reflective and partly autobiographical way the effect and influence of events which have shaped the person I am and my destiny.
As I pause and think over particular events. I may ask. “How did this come about and for what purpose does it serve ?” Then I may decide this is worth writing about. Here is the sort of question I have in mind.
“Why was I in bed when the Queen Mother came visiting ? “
It is the nineteen fifties and I am in bed on ward one of Harlow Wood orthopaedic hospital preparing to take a snapshot. Here was a moment all the staff had been working towards, for many weeks. Myself with another patient, Danny Ayres, had been selected to speak to the royal visitor and present to her a dressing table set done in Tatting Work. It was one of those many crafts encouraged to keep hands busy and while away the long hours for recovery. With some enterprising zeal I had arranged for prints to be ready within a few hours for friends and visitors. Reflecting on this moment takes the memory of being “in hospital” back to the beginning of the disability. Contaminated milk was the clue !
The anticipated joy of going to school, infants, juniors, seniors, all new buildings to serve the model mining village of New Ollerton, was but a short event, ( It was to be many years later that I ventured through the door of the latter grade to be on a par with fellow pupils.)
I stood at the door, wide eyed and timid in great hope. Here was the world of chattering voices, the delight of chalk board and crayons with the discovery of facts and figures to feed an eager mind. Here were friends in the playground who would share with me games and laughter.
All this hope was soon dashed to disappointment. Nothing more significant than a pint of milk changed the course of events.
It was sometime around the age of five and a half that it was feared the milk lady had, all be it unwittingly, brought a delivery of contaminated milk. The TB bacillus began its devastating work on the left hip joint and I was soon to become a child in the care of the local cripples’ guild and as it turned out a benefactor of the largesse given out by Winifred, Duchess of Portland. (In 1929 the Orthopaedic hospital, at Harlow Wood, for adults and crippled children was opened on the initiative of Dr. Alan Malkin and through the generosity of the Duchess.)
Meanwhile, Being in a wicker basket carriage, like an extended perambulator, I was laid prone for all to gaze at. It became my lot to be the local object of curiosity.
Indeed, The Milk Churn carried a destiny far different from that dreamed of at the infant school entrance.
Education was to become self determined and any progress mostly “on your own.”
This is a picture on me Donald in the arms of a nurse in Nottingham General Hospital, where I was born prematurely Nov. 5th `1926 because mother was a sick person.
Alfred Williams, (father) in the War 1914n-1918