Fortunately at Grammar School not much happened to trouble me. Biology was an obvious snare but it was taught only in the first year, not being viewed as a serious Science meriting study alongside Physics and Chemistry. In any case the syllabus was packed entirely with plant life, so I was safe.
Although I experienced the entire blitz - like many others I returned home after one year as an evacuee following the fall of France - I never once saw an injury. There was not much point in having a split family if we were to be invaded. So I returned to the city just in time for the first air raids and over many months saw plenty of devastation. The nearest bomb missed our house by a hundred metres and the blast flew parallel so neither our house nor our neighbours’ houses had any broken windows. True, people died, killed in their cellar by the blast but I didn’t see them. Thoughts as to what I would do in an emergency didn’t cross my mind. There were air raid wardens and first aid people for that sort of thing.
Then a teacher at School offered to teach first aid as an extra-curricular activity. Foolishly I mentioned this to my father. He was an air raid warden and also took his turn on fire duty at the central Council Offices where he worked and certainly saw plenty of activity at first hand.
‘An excellent idea - you must go to that,’ he enthused. ‘You never know when you may have to help injured people, even your friends at School.’
‘But they won’t want me in the class, I shall faint all the time,’ I replied not enthusing in the slightest.
‘Nonsense, if you persevere you’ll get out of this silly habit. Just don’t think about it. The more you worry about fainting the more likely you are to do it.’
He was quite right, of course, but I found it impossible to achieve. No doubt to-day someone would advise psychotherapy. But the NHS was still an idea for the future - this was pre-Beveridge Report - and I didn’t even know the word ‘therapy’. So I went unwillingly to the first aid sessions and coped with the simple things like slinging broken arms with triangular bandages and binding splints on broken legs. | found I could cope with notes on emetics when poison had been swallowed. I was able to pound away at the chests of my pals who were pretending they had inconsiderately fallen into water and been dragged out fairly well drowned. But then:
‘We will now consider deep flesh wounds. In such cases it is likely that a main artery has been severed and therefore it’s essential to staunch the blood flow. This can be done to an extent at the site of the wound but it is far more preferable to apply pressure to a nearby pressure point by squeezing the artery against a bone, thus restricting the blood flow. This entails knowing.... yes, alright Flaxton, go out if you must.’ The master would tail off in a tired voice and I would slink out, go for a brisk walk and recover but learn nothing in consequence about pressure point sites.
I staggered through the course somehow. It came in useful on paper when I joined the School’s Air Training Corps (ATC) squadron. I was very keen on that and spent much spare time making model aeroplanes. It helped if you had some useful hobbies and interests, so I cheekily put the first aid course. A different master was CO. of the ATC, fortunately.
There was an equivalent OTC. That acronym meant it was for fledgling officers, but because it became highly popular in many schools in the early years of the war it was patently obvious the Army would never need such a vast supply. The Chiefs need rather more Indians. So later it was changed to the JTC - for juniors.
Later, when I considered teaching, the subject of my weakness cropped up again at home. ‘What would you do with a real emergency to a child if you’re like this when listening to a talk? Children do injure themselves, you know. One might do so when you’re the only person to help. What would you do then?’
The scenario did concern me to an extent, but I always managed to push it to the back of my mind and hope. Providence seemed to concur for I never became involved in a serious situation where anyone had to rely on me.
I took sensible steps to avoid fainting. I realised the trigger was any situation where I felt trapped, such as in the middle of a row in a lecture room. I started sitting near to the door and slipped out when I experienced the early signs. Interestingly I found this worked quite well and usually was able to slip back in quite quickly. I also found that once this had occurred I could then listen without a recurrence of the symptoms. However, whenever I did nip out I had to make up my notes afterwards.
Doing that on one occasion standing in the College library, using a reference book on the circulatory system, I felt queasy so shut the book and walked outside into the corridor. I was completely alone as I mounted a short flight of steps beyond the library doors. I became aware of a wall pressing against my right cheek and momentarily couldn’t understand why I was trying to turn to the right when the corridor went straight ahead. Then I realised it wasn’t a wall, it was the floor and I was lying on it. I remember lying there feeling absolutely idiotic, especially because on that occasion I had no inkling I was about to pass out. I was perfectly relaxed, had done myself no injury, and got up and walked on with no lingering ill feelings whatsoever.
But my problem spread embarrassingly to other matters. Human reproduction was conspicuously absent from the Hygiene course; it was confidently asserted we would never have to teach that. Though to-day mention is often made of the chemistry between people, that also was conspicuously missing from our Chemistry lessons. So what knowledge I gleaned came from tutors of the subject who used the loos as their lecture theatres. And the Encyclopaedia Britannica. This was the only source of reference in the School library that gave any information on the subject. Actually there wasn’t much else at all in the library; they rather assumed the volumes covered every necessary topic. So I came to know much about the two forms of human anatomy from this source. All relevant parts were given their Latin names. I’ve sometimes mused that I might have passed Latin had the questions featured human reproduction instead of Caesar’s Gallic Wars.
But whilst I was a student the epochal film ‘Birth of a Baby’ was made and one half of the population went to see it because they had never seen a baby born. Most of the other half were well experienced in the subject and went to see whether anything like the real situation had got past the Board of Censors for public viewing. General opinion suggested it had, though cleaned up a bit because the birth took place in hospital. Birth at home could be different, they said.
I knew very well I ought to see it but guessed, also very accurately, that it would contain sections that would prey on my weakness. There was also the fact that I would be in a cinema, probably with people all around and well away from a door....
Nevertheless I decided to go with Malcolm Ashterligh who well knew my problem and in the queue outside laid bets as to how long I should last. To cheer me up and give me confidence he gave short odds on half an hour at least. I offered even shorter ones on ten minutes. Nobly he didn’t accept, thereby throwing away a cert.
Whenever I come across the phrase the darkness was palpable I think of that cinema. As we stumbled in, blinded from the outside sunshine, I felt that darkness as an enitity that could be touched and handled. You could carve a chunk and take it home. Then the screen came alive and with elegant sweetness some attractive ladies, drinking tea, started discussing the babies they were going to have in some months’ time. So far so good, I thought, sweat only gently trickling down my back.
‘But we must start at the beginning,’ a voice said. Nearby there were some sniggers, abruptly stifled because the scene shifted to a diagram with someone in a white coat prodding it with a pointer.
‘Here we have a diagram of the female reproductive organs. Once a month an ovum is released from the ovaries and attaches itself to the lining of the uterus. If it is not fertilised, blood suffuses the lining and the walls expand. The diagram dutifully did just that, throbbingly red, then the camera shifted to a close-up and I was reeling for the gyra
ting exit sign. I staggered dangerously against an usherette who had just taken up her position by the door having seen everyone settled in their seats. She couldn’t imagine I was leaving so soon and thought I was making a pass at her. Once she got the message she opened the door and I staggered through.
In the corridor outside she looked hard at me. They had had men biting the dust all week when the film reached the gory parts - that much had made the local papers - but here was one going weak at the menstrual diagram. Her look said it all; The stronger sex! Don’t make me laugh.
She was so convincing I couldn’t bear to try going back in. I would have been beside her if I’d tried standing inside near the door where I’d have felt less confined. I slunk away from her to the bus queue and home, thoroughly annoyed with myself, wondering how on earth I was going to rid myself of the wretched phobia.
Then one day, Kim, my girlfriend, asked me to take some students to a party that Joanne, a friend of hers, was arranging. Being very dutiful in such matters I arrived with Gordon, Berny and Malcolm to meet Kim, Joanne and two other girls. In those days parties were parties; long, full of rumbustious games interspersed with competitions requiring intelligence whilst you got your second wind. This occasion was no exception and I look back on such events with great nostalgia.
I suppose twenty years later I first went to a party where everyone stood around drinking and chatting. I spent the entire time wondering when the fun was going to start - then, suddenly, people were leaving and thanking the hosts for a great time. I left realising I had stepped over the generation gap.
One game Joanne introduced was quite a simple affair. We boys got on the floor on our hands and knees and the girls sat on our backs as jockeys. The object was to race across the room. The fun ensued from two elements - the girls put their hands over our eyes and the room was not very large. Naturally the boys knew the whole idea was to finish in a tangled heap and were happy to oblige; what we did not know was that the girls had plastered their hands with lipstick and as they put them over our eyes our faces were liberally smeared.
The ensuing pile of bodies looked delightfully sanguine with four redskins rolling amongst the girls, causing much laughter. But the heartiest giggling came from Sonia, Joanne’s six year old sister, who had been allowed to stay up for the evening. It was a sensible arrangement for she couldn’t have slept a wink with all of us careering round the house on varied treasure hunts.
‘I want to ride a horse!’ she exclaimed loudly when the laughter subsided.
‘Come on, then,’ volunteered Malcolm. ‘Put her on my back, someone.’ Berny immediately sprang into the role of jockey’s assistant.
‘I want some lipstick as well!’ No six year old was going to be content with half measures, so Joanne enjoyed herself covering her young sister’s hands with a really thick coating.
‘Oo, lovely. Now, gee up, gee gee!’ She slapped her hands smartly over Malcolm’s eyes and dug her heels just as smartly into his ribs. Entering into the spirit of the thing he galloped round the room most energetically on hands and knees whilst Sonia clung on shrieking her delight and gripping his face so tightly he was forced to keep his eyes completely shut. We sat back enjoying the spectacle hugely.
‘Hang on, cowgirl, go to it!’
‘Make him jump, Sonia, he’s a lazy old nag!’
‘Pull his head round, he’s so stubborn!’
Malcolm certainly didn’t see, nor did we until it was too late, that the door to the next room was half open. He wobbled unknowingly to one side of it; Sonia, slipping in the saddle at that moment, wobbled the other way and hit her forehead on the protruding catch. It was hard metal and sharp and struck between the eyebrows, fortunately missing her eyes but puncturing a small artery. This behaved itself precisely as predicted by the Doc, the Master i/c First Aid and all relevant text books. In a couple of seconds Sonia’s face was plastered as red as ours were, but with blood.
I grabbed my unused and folded handkerchief from my pocket and slapped it on her face in the same instant she became aware of the blood and screamed. My hands had collected some of the lipstick in the erstwhile melee and so my handkerchief turned red with blood on one side and lipstick on the other. Very soon it was covered with a macabre mixture of both. Sonia’s father, alerted by her scream, dashed in from the other room - parents then didn’t evacuate premises for parties - blanched when he saw what appeared to be a terrible injury.
He was a chiropodist by profession and a member of the St Jon’s Ambulance Brigade and so was well prepared for emergencies. In a very short while Sonia was cleaned up and transformed from a serious casualty into a bravely smiling young lady, responding to our jokes about the large pad fixed to her forehead with a bandage. When the untoward excitement subsided and we had scrubbed away all traces of blood and lipstick, Joanne looked round the company.
‘I think we all need some refreshment after that. Now, we have plenty to go at - savoury meat and fish things, salmon, egg, tomato sandwiches, then there’s trifle and cream, meringues and ice cream, chocolate cake....’
I looked at the others in anticipation. I have always been on excellent terms with my inner man and now was no exception. But suddenly I saw something was amiss. Instead of the sparkling eyed reaction I expected I saw rather fixed stares from three male faces, each of which looked strangely washed out. Momentarily I thought they were tired but rapidly dismissed the thought because they had been wildly cavorting steeds only a short while earlier.
‘What’s up, men? Aren’t you hungry yet?’ I enquired.
‘Er, no. Not just at the moment,’ said Gordon
‘I think I’ll go out and get a blow of fresh air first,’ said Berny. I got rather hot in that last game.’ He slipped out quickly.
‘Nigel!’ expostulated Malcolm. ‘How on earth can you, of all people, face food so soon after seeing all that blood? It made Berny and Gordon quite queasy. Can’t say I feel all that good myself. But you - you helped, got your hands covered in blood even. Blimey, you should be spark out, not thinking of gorging yourself with trifle and cream!’ He looked quite astounded.
But I was feeling fine. After the event I realised I had acted instinctively and had been of some use in the crisis. Furthermore, I’d looked at the injury and the blood and hadn’t felt like turning a hair. My phobia was entirely founded in the unreal world of the lecture room and my imagination; it had nothing to do with the real thing. The feeling of release gave me a wonderful feeling of relief - and a fantastic appetite!
I mention simply as a matter of fact that I have since dressed many youthful injuries, watched many operations on television and can talk quite happily on these matters. My word, I enjoyed that supper! The other three had such poor appetites, you see, and I have never been able to let trifle and cream go to waste.
But honesty compels me to record that for many years my weakness reasserted itself when my own blood was involved. I am fortunate that I have never suffered serious injury, but at medical examinations over the years I have had to provide blood samples - occasionally large ones. When giving these, if I dared to look, the vision of my own blood seeping into the phial was apt to turn my legs to jelly. So I studied pamphlets on the path. lab walls or gazed fixedly out of the window. The ploy was never lost on the nurses doing the deed but, bless them, they always told me that was a sensible thing to do.
Many years ago, following the birth of my second son, at one such event I was given a card proclaiming my blood group. It is headed ‘Blood Donor Service’ and I carry it dutifully in my wallet, but what it suggests about me is completely false. But I’ve always told myself they wouldn’t want me fainting all over the place. Would they?
Chapter 12
A trawl through my block practice lesson notebook to-day gives glimpses of educational attitudes and assumptions about children at the time, interspersed with embarrassing revelations
about my own attitude. It is intriguing to see how my memory has made comfortable adaptations; some comments were written by a person I don’t recognise.
One page is devoted to Miss Beaumont’s own class records. She had given an intelligence test and a reading test, as was done in most classes of the time. These were standardized, i.e. they had been given to a sufficiently wide population and the scores aggregated to produce a scale of intelligence quotients in which 100 marked the performance of an average student. Reading tests did the same with an extensive list of words, but in these an average score was that of a child’s actual age. It was easy to see, therefore, who was above or below average in reading ability. A graph of IQ results produced the familiar bell-shaped curve of distribution across the population, just as height does plotted against numbers of people. IQ results were regarded as nearly such precise measures of ability.
The lists (not their real names) show actual age, reading age, and IQ. Some of these are:
Roger B 11 years 3 months; 10.25 89
William H 11 years 3 months 8.5 85
Benny C 10 years 11 months 10.5 105
Peter M 10 years 10 months 10.75 91
My ‘personal impressions’ are recorded as ‘Roger: neat, reliable, does good work, has a good voice. William: a plodder, very slow. Benny: neat, bright. Peter: very helpful, tries hard, has poor eyesight.’
Sylvia J 11 years 2 months 9.75 91
Betty H 10 years 4 months 9.0 92
Mildred M 10 years 9 months 8.5 113
Shirley A 11 years 1 month 9.75 105
For these girls my notes record, ‘Sylvia: English - fair, Arithmetic - weak. Frail, but helpful. Betty: slow and inclined to be dull. Mildred: intelligent and normal child (heaven forfend!). Shirley: work good, intelligent.’
Greetings Noble Sir Page 13