After Dad came home from the war and we all soon got into living a normal life again. That was in July 1946 and I was about to turn nine. I was in third class and that was the year I had my appendix out.
I took an attack of unbearable pain. Miss Rose was my teacher. She was a large lady who used to sit at her desk and we all used to laugh because we could see her big bloomers. One day when we were marching into school the elastic in her bloomers broke and they fell down. She just stepped out of them and put them in her bag. We all got into trouble for laughing and were kept in after school.
Getting back to my appendix attack, the pain was so bad I couldn’t walk. Two older girls were picked out to carry me home. Just as well I was a very small girl as we had to go about 500 metres. Luckily as we were just rounding the corner, my mum was just there with my grandmother. They were heading off to town for the day. Mum took me straight to the doctors and without even going home I was put into Balmain Hospital. I was operated on that afternoon. The doctor said I could have died if we had been any later in getting there.
Balmain Hospital was a beautiful hospital then, not a bit like it is now. The children’s ward was beautiful as all the walls had been decorated by Pixie O’Harris with lovely murals all around. Many years later I had my two children there.
I had also had my tonsils out at the Children’s Hospital at Camperdown in Sydney the year before.
My other hospital outing was at the Coast Hospital at Little Bay. It was later known as The Prince Henry Hospital and because of its beautiful position is now being sold as a new housing development.
Back then the Coast Hospital was the place you were put when you were contagious. I think I was about eight when I was there. I was taken in an ambulance as I had scarlet fever. It was very catchy so I had to be isolated from the other kids. Mum put two chairs together to make me a bed in the front room until the ambulance arrived.
I was carried out of the house and all the neighbours were there to wish me well. I was very lonely in the hospital as mum and dad could only come on Sundays for a visit. It took about two hours to get there - first a tram to Central Railway then another to Little Bay - and they always brought the other children with them. Once there they could only look at me through a glass screen.
I had to stay there for six weeks. The nurses were very nice dressed in there stiff white aprons and veils. Once the red rash and the fever had gone I was not so sick so I just played and did some schoolwork, read books and sang songs.
Nurses and doctors came from all over the hospital just to hear me sing. It made me feel very special. I told them my dad taught me to sing and I knew lots of songs as he and I sang at home all the time. The song they liked me to sing was The Sandman Is Coming.