MIRACLES STILL HAPPEN THEY ARE CALLED OUR NHS.

I have been pondering an idea to write a book in the New Year honouring our NHS. On the third anniversary of my daughter’s death in 2020 I published OUR REBEKAHA LOVE STORY FROM OUR NHS. I have been a loud and outspoken supporter of our NHS since she was first diagnosed with renal failure.

I  have been pondering a follow up book and have now decided to write it MIRACLES STILL HAPPEN THEY ARE CALLED OUR NHS.

Right now I am brainstorming lots of ideas. Here is something I scribbled yesterday.

Memory Lane

My grandfather died on Wednesday 11^th April 1934. On his death certificate the cause of his passing is given as:

·       Coronary arterial thrombosis

·       Acute bronchitis

·       Chronic pulmonary tuberculosis

The doctor certifying the death was a J H Reeves.

I never knew my grandfather. He was discharged from the army on Friday 17^th December 1915 due to his contracting tuberculosis while serving in the trenches of The Great War. His death coming eighteen years and four months later. I was born on Friday 3^rd November 1950

and so I never knew my grandfather. I did, however, know Doctor J Hanson-Reeves and have a vivid memory of him, one very specific vivid memory of him.

Friday 17^th December 1915, Wednesday 11^th April 1934 there was no NHS back then. The National Health Service was born on Monday 5^th July 1948, one year and four months before I was born, fifteen years three months after my grandfather’s death when Doctor Hanson-Reeves signed William Henry Ashford’s death certificate.

Late 1954 or perhaps early 1955, I suspect the former, as a small child I contracted measles. A common but if not properly treated a potentially serious childhood disease. I can remember so very clearly Doctor Reeves coming to my home, examining me as I lay in bed then moving to draw the curtains so lowering the light. A side affect of measles can be it damaging the eyes. Thanks to the skill and the home visit of Doctor Reeves my eye sight was not damaged.

At the close of the 1990’s there were less than one thousand cases of measles in the UK per year. In 1955 there were six hundred and ninety-three thousand eight hundred and three cases with one hundred and seventy-four deaths ! What brought about such a dramatic change ? Scientific research ? It played its part but the real reason can be found within our National Health Service and wonderful people like Doctor J Hanson-Reeves.

Family tradition blames the cold, wet and mud of the trenches of 1914/1915 for my grandfather contracting tuberculosis but it is a disease passed from one person to another and not caught through the environment. My grandfather was a fit and healthy man, at school he had been awarded a medal by The Aston School Board for never missing a day’s education. As I look at a photograph of him taken on the day he joined the army and one taken around 1930 he is not the same person.

In Granddad’s day tuberculosis was all too  common. I remember in my boyhood knowing someone who had the illness. There were special hospitals for sufferers which were called sanitoriums. I am a lover of poetry and one of my favourite poets is John Keats. He contracted tuberculosis and died at the age of just twenty-five. Today cases of tuberculosis, often in my childhood abbreviated to TB and in polite society called Consumption, are the lowest ever recorded. Indeed symptoms can be so mild someone may not even realise they have the illness.

As a young teenager I generally suffered each winter from a persistent cough. I remember my father taking me several times to Doctor Reeves asking him to check if I had tuberculosis. I remember Doctor Reeves patiently explaining that TB was not a disease which ran in the family, I did NOT have tuberculosis and if I had I would not have inherited it from my father’s father. But an annual cough I did have until I grew out of it.

Does London still have the nickname The Smoke ? As polluted the capital’s air may be it is a tiny fraction of that it knew in the 1960’s. I did not grow up in London but in Sutton Coldfield on the edge of Britain’s second city Birmingham. It was the atmosphere in which I lived that caused my cough. Today in old age I do not remember the last time I suffered with a cough !

How many people today suffer from Bronchitis ? Today we are a bit posh and call it COPD – Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. It is thought that something like 2% of the population live with COPD. My Nan, William Ashford’s wife, lived with Bronchitis as an annual event which as I remember it was far worse than anything people may experience today. Yes, cleaner air has a lot to do with that but there is something else which we must not forget, indeed we should applaud – Our National Health Service. Doctor J Hanson-Reeves and his medical successors.

No, my Nan did not smoke and I do not think her husband smoked. The tobacco in his 1914 Christmas gift from Princess Mary given to all soldiers serving in  the trenches was intact. Smoking in my granddad’s say was encouraged, in my youth it was socially acceptable and for teenage boys promoted as macho by the tobacco companies. Thank goodness things have changed. No, Nan did not smoke but she did suffer from bronchitis which was treated by Doctor J Hanson- Reeves and her wonderful National Health Service.

I am going to end this little journey down Memory Lane but will invite you to meander with me again in a little while. Get your walking shoes ready.