Leslie Brame‘s memoir ‘As I Remember It’ is continuing to keep me busy. His memories are enriching our knowledge of what life was like in early 20th century Stowupland and the people who lived in Church Walk Hamlet.
In September we were looking forward to welcoming Dr Anne Folan to give the group a talk about the start of Health Visiting in Ipswith in the early 1900s. (You can read or listen to Jerry’s review in next month’s Updates). Her talk got me thinking about what SLHG archives had to tell us about health care in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Although local people seem to have always had to rely on Stowmarket doctors for medical care, for many decades of the 20th century we did have nurses who lived within the community. Leslie tells us that in 1914 he was delivered in his parent’s home, in Church Walk, by a mid-wife when ‘The family teapot was kept busy all night, though the midwife had her own preferred tipple’
You can get a taste of other types of health care that was available to local people in our Newsletter 31. The gruesome image above came from an advert for Stowmarket pharmacist and dentist, James Gostling. The image came from Harry Double’s book “The march of Time” (p33).
