Recollections

Deaconess Hospital

Pleasance, South Side, Edinburgh

Recollections

1.

David Bain

Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England

Thank you to David Bain who wrote:

Accident

"I remember the only time that I was hurried to the Deaconess Hospital.   I had been playing in the back green at my grandparents' house in Craigmillar when I slashed my ankle on a dog's discarded bone.

I can still see the room in the hospital.  It was on the ground floor at the front.  Despite the frosted glass, I could see people and traffic outside.  It was a long and narrow room with a work surface on the left on which I was seated to have my wound stitched.  The shelves above it stretched, it seemed, to the ceiling.

The old grey cells must be working ok because this must have been in about 1951.   I was three then and I still have the scar."

David Bain, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England:  October 11, 2009

Recollections

2.

John Davie

Longniddry, East Lothian, Scotland

Thank you to John Davie who wrote:

Tonsils

"I was born in 1937.  One of my earliest memories is when I was taken by my mother to Deaconess Hospital when I was about six years old. In common with other children of my age, if you had any throat complaint,  the medical profession's cure was to indiscriminately remove tonsils and/or adenoids.

 For the first time in my life I was left overnight, alone, in a hospital.  I can vividly recall  crying for my mother with my mouth full of blood.

At the time we were living at Station Road, Craigmillar, which must have been within that hospital's catchment area."

John Davie, Longniddry, East Lothian, Scotland:  February 25, 2010

 Recollections

3.

Bobby Inglis

Essex, England

Thank you to Bobby Inglis who wrote:

Seven Years Old

"My only memory of the Deaconess Hospital is being taken there when I was seven years old.  I was carried on mum's back, a coalie buckie, we called it .

My Mum was a wee woman and I was a fat lump then compared to her, 4 ft 10 ins, 7 stones.  She carried me for a few hundred yards from Niddrie Mains Drive, Craigmillar, then we caught a No 2 bus to the hospital."

Accident

"I had been fishing in the Figgie Burn, up by Dryburgh's brewery in bare feet catching baggies when I stood on broken jar in the water and had to hobble home with help from my pal who was the same age.

The deaconess to me looked like a convent.  The nurses were strict.  Perhaps that was because we didn't have any money and got the treatment free.  I recovered after a few weeks."

Bobby Inglis, Essex, England:  June 12, 2011

Recollections

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