Roecliffe Manor
A Memory of Woodhouse Eaves.
I was an 'inmate' of Roecliffe Manor Convalescent Home around 1958/9. I had an operation on my tonsils and went to Roecliffe to recuperate. I think I was supposed to spend about two weeks there but I lasted around five days! I hated the place. You were not allowed your own clothes, you had to wear uniform which for the girls was a bright green long-sleeved woollen dress (very scratchy) with some sort of pinafore over the top. The dormitory windows had bars and the dormitory doors were locked at night. Visiting by parents was on Sunday afternoons only. Letters could be sent home to your parents but the staff would have to read them first and if not approved, they would not be posted. They refused to post mine! Having never been away from my family before, I found the place positively Dickensian and spent most of my time there weeping. This of course was not very good for my newly operated-on tonsils which kept bleeding, and in the end the doctor who came to visit us there decided (much to the fury of the Matron) that I should be sent home. I think I arrived there on Monday and was dispatched home by ambulance the following Friday - what a relief! I was subsequently told by my mother that she had telephoned the home regularly and spoke to the Matron who had assured her that I was doing fine and was perfectly okay. My mother was horrified to learn that I had been so unhappy!
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Best wishes
Norma Thorpe nee Webster
MBRCP GTR Hyp Dip GHR
My time there was almost sixty years ago and I still think about it with dread. A beautiful place and surroundings but just the experience of being somewhere like that when you are poorly and just want your Mum is not conducive to healing. The staff there were not really what a child needs when they are ill, more likely they were suited to a correction center. I am so glad that the attitude to nursing has changed somewhat over the years.
I agree the food was certainly not nutritious or tempting for children with sore throats. Hope you are all well now.
Joanna
I was sent there when I was 3 after a tonsilectomy I suppose because my family were poor and both parents had to work, it was winter and I remember the sound of the crows in the bare trees and never being allowed out on the play equipment because it was "too wet".I was made to sleep in a cot which I hated-I wasn't a baby!
Sunday visits meant hugs and sweets but only after an equal distribution among the other inmates, the confectionery was put into glass jars on a high shelf in a small locked room to be shared out later.i too remember the barred windows and the nit comb, crying every night for my mam, and being woken every night when someone wee'd the bed or was sick.
I remember being tossed in a blanket by the older children and being terrified.
(later in life I did and still do high risk sports)
I hated every second of my stay here albeit only for a fortnight or so.
On my joyous return home I was treated to ice cream and presents one of which was a mechanical walking bulldog with Jaws which opened and snapped shut, my mam said I backed up flat against the wall then ran at the brute and booted it up to the ceiling victorious as it exploded into component springs, cogs and scary teeth.
Still this was heaven after awful Roecliffe.
It was probably 1959 when I went ... I was told I'd be there for 2 weeks after prolonged period of illness.
Yes it was ghastly! So regimented .... having someone daily checking that you'd had a bowel movement and so cold!
I think I was good at not crying but a lot of the children around me hadn't got my level of control.
I don't think it was Suzy (above) but I remember someone in tears at the dinner table because they couldn't swallow the fat (retching). They were the last child eating with someone standing angrily over them saying none of us could leave the dining room until they had cleared their plate.
To avoid bed-wetting (which wasn't a problem for me) we were all prevented from from drinking anything after a after a certain time so I was really thirsty by bed time, and I got told off for sucking water off my tooth brush as I was going to bed.
I hope the nice young nurses read this because there were some nice kind ones. I do remember the nurse who bathed me who had a thermometer to get the water to a lovely comfortable temperature, but getting out into the cold bathroom was grim.
I remember another child teaching me to platt with the long grass there.
After a week my parents visited and I pleaded to come home, but was told that I couldn't but consoled by being told I was "half way though" and I'd be coming home next week . The following week came and my mother told me that I had to spend a third week....... I never really forgave her for that because I believe she just wanted another week's respite from me.
On the "up-side" it has given me a sense of justice for children which I think has been a spur towards me becoming a sympathetic foster carer. I never lie to children! We didn't desreve it ... they all deserve better!