Parents were only allowed to look through a window and were not allowed onto the ward to see their bairns.
I can remember when I was in the home. One week we would get Gregory Powder. This keeps your bowels open properly; they mixed it with chemical food. The next week castor oil. Also, even though you did not have a dirty head, they used Saffras oil and the small toothed comb.
Our Jean got TB. She was in St Mary’s Hospital in Morpeth. She was 7 years old. She used to be in the Salvation Army and they used to visit her. I didn’t go to see her. It used to be terrible in hospitals. Parents could not visit; they were only allowed to look through a window and were not allowed on the wards to see their bairns. They were not allowed to go near them. I’ve talked to patients who say they were given a bowl of sago pudding every day and they had to eat it in the morning. If there was any left they had it cold at midday. It was to build their bodies up because, very often, they did not have a lot of disease resistance.