2. How It All Began

When I started at college in September 1973 my friends told me I looked ‘The picture of health’. I was a young (18), fit, Physical Education and Biology student at a teacher training college, as I used to say one keeps you fit and the other tells you what you are keeping fit for!

Nearly 3 years later everything in my life was to change. On the 6th March 1976 I played my last game of hockey.

In the evening, after I had had my bath, to watch my bruises develop, my left knee started to hurt. Another bruise I thought but when it got worse instead of better, I went to my GP who said he would refer me to an orthopaedic specialist. As I was a PE student, in my final year, I saw him write URGENT on the corner of the envelope.

A couple of weeks later, as I had heard nothing, I rang the hospital (King’s College Hospital at Denmark Hill, South London), where I was told that Mr. M., the consultant orthopaedic surgeon, hadn’t read the letter yet. I told her that my GP had written urgent on the envelope. Her reply was that Mr. M. had to decide if it was urgent or not. I said “How could he decide whether it was urgent if he hadn’t read the letter?”. She had no answer to that but she said that I might have to wait months for an appointment.

I related this to my mum who said I should see if I could go private. I rang back and was told that I could have an appointment the following afternoon. After seeing Mr. M. as a private patient I nearly turned communist.

He diagnosed ‘Chondromalacia Patella’ which meant that the cartilage on the back of my knee cap was hard and rough instead of soft and smooth which makes it feel like you’ve got a piece of sandpaper in your knee.

He said this condition was quite common in ‘sporty’ people but it would probably go in 4 to 8 months.

There followed weeks of physiotherapy, which made it worse, whilst I was sitting my final exams. This problem meant I was unable to take my final practical exam but as I was seeing a specialist, I was granted a pass without doing the practical.

All of these problems meant that there was no way I would be able to teach, as standing was a problem let alone walking or running.

After I’d left college, as the physio had not helped at all, Mr. M said he’d try an operation called a ‘Retinacular Release’ which meant cutting the fibres, at the side of my knee, to hope that my kneecap would move over slightly and so would stop grating when I walked.

I was to be in the hospital annexe which is actually another hospital called St. Giles at Peckham.

The strange thing about this is that while I was in hospital in Peckham my dad was in hospital in Whitechapel so the family had to choose who to visit. Neither place was exactly close to Ilford, where we lived.

This was to be my first stay in hospital and my sister came with me to get me settled in.

When we got there, it was a really old-fashioned ward a large room with 24 beds around the edge with the bathrooms and toilets at one end and, of course, my bed at the opposite end. This led to me learning the first bad thing about being in hospital – BED PANS!

Bed Pans

If you're going into hospital

And although it's a big pity

You are going to have to accept that

You're going to lose your dignity.

You have to wear a special gown

That means your bum's on show

But the worst thing that you suffer

Happens when you have to go.

What I'm talking about is for girls alone

It's much better if you're a man

I'm referring to the thing I hate most

The awful, disgusting BED PAN.

The pan will be boiling hot

Or so cold your bum will freeze.

It’s worse if your op’s on your leg

Believe me I don’t tease.

The bottom of your bed is raised.

So, you have to pee up hill.

You have to take particular care

To ensure the contents do not spill!

They’re always so understaffed

That when you’re finally done

You’re left sitting on the thing

Until your bum’s gone numb.

So even though it hurts a lot

And maybe slows your recovery too.

You’re going to say you feel just fine

So, they’ll let you go to the loo.

On arrival, after checking in, my sister remarked, ‘Goodness you’re the youngest here by about 40 years!’ and I replied ‘I suppose they’re all having hip replacements.’ I got changed and my sister left.

A very young doctor came to examine me to make sure I was well enough to have the operation and when he started to tap my chest I said, as a joke, “It’s my knee doctor!”, he went bright red and did the fastest examination possible and never said another word to me and I never saw him again. I wonder where he is now? I hope I didn’t adversely affect his career!

In those days consultants were treated like gods they would march around with their entourage when they were on their rounds treating the junior doctors as an annoyance as though they had forgotten that they were junior doctors themselves once.

On their rounds the consultants never spoke to a patient and before the consultants arrived all the nursing staff rushed around the ward making sure everything was ready for them. Woe-betide the nurse that did anything to hold up a consultant. All patients had to be quiet, sitting up straight, in clean clothes, in freshly made beds. It was sickening!

Consultants’ Rounds

Sit up straight and don’t crease the sheets.

Don’t leave around wrappers from your sweets.

Wash yourself and brush your hair.

Make certain you have clean clothes to wear.

Don’t get out of bed even to go to the loo.

There isn’t enough time to do what you want to do.

Be quite sure not to make any sounds.

It’s nearly time for the consultants’ rounds.

Why is it that whenever a member of my family is in hospital the nutter is always in the next bed??

Mine was an old lady of 85 who’d had a fall and they were keeping her there until they could get a bed in a geriatric unit.

During the daytime she was fine telling stories of when she was young. But as soon as it got dark, she’d start yelling and swearing at people only she could see. The nursing staff would pump her full of every tranquilliser in existence but they never had any effect.

I remember one event quite clearly. As she spent a lot of time in bed the nurses had to apply cream to her pressure points to avoid bed sores and one evening, she refused to have the cream saying “I ain’t having any more of that creamed arse or I’ll slide right out of the bleeding bed.”

Another time she refused to have her knockout injections. Each successive rank of nurse tried to persuade her but failed until, during visiting time, the nursing officer (matron as was) tried. This nursing officer had quite a thick, cultured German accent. Picture the scene: a ward of about twenty beds each with their visitors and one bed surrounded by curtains with the following conversation clearly heard from behind.

NURSING OFFICER:   Come now Mrs. Vinfield you vill have your injection.

MRS. WINFIELD:         I ain’t having it.

NURSING OFFICER:   Oh, come now it’s good for you.

MRS. WINFIELD:         I ain’t having it. I’m like a bleeding pincushion already.

NURSING OFFICER:   But Mrs. Vinfield, it’s penicillin.

MRS. WINFIELD:         Oh, all right then.

Just goes to show she had obviously been promoted to the exalted heights of Nursing Officer because she had learnt a lot of psychology during her career.

After a few nights of listening to her shouts we discovered how to get her to sleep at night. No injections, no pills, the secret was - bananas. As long as we gave her plenty of bananas during the day, she actually slept all night.

Actually, there was another nutter in the ward who was much worse than Mrs. Winfield. She looked like everyone’s idea of a lovely little old granny, but looks can be deceiving! I don’t remember her name she was a couple of beds away from me. She had come into hospital, I believe, after she had had a fall and had broken her hip and needed it to be replaced.

Unfortunately, something in her mind snapped during her stay in hospital and she became convinced that everyone was trying to kill her and she went wild and was discovered smashing the visitors’ toilet with a crutch. It took 5 members of staff to get her under control and back to her bed and during this she broke her hip again.

Because of her paranoia her husband had to bring in all her food and water and the staff discovered, after a while, that she wasn’t taking her pills, she was pretending to take them and then spitting them into her handbag.