Gervase Phinn: Harsh medicine

For many years she worked in Rotherham as a school nurse accompanying the doctor around schools to assist with the TB injections, the polio inoculations, the hair inspections for head lice and to undertake the regular medical assessments of the children. On one occasion, when visiting a school in Kimberworth she discovered that a child, rather than having gained height since his last assessment, had in fact shrunk. The doctor was rather bemused for the child was clearly not undernourished. He expressed his anxiety to the headteacher who quipped. "The lad seems to be settling down nicely, then." The doctor was not amused. One of Aunt Nora's main jobs as she toured the schools was the relentless search for nits. The "nit nurse" featured large in school folklore and every child dreaded being singled out as a carrier of these unwelcome visitors.

In one school one whole class was infested. The one exception was a small, dark-skinned little boy from an Irish travellers' family. His hair was clean, shiny black and free of the little creatures. My Auntie, intrigued, asked what the secret was. The boy tapped his nose and winked. "My Granfer has this special way of getting rid of them," he told her smiling.

"Which is?" asked my aunt.

"Sure, that's for me to know and you to find out," he replied.

Traditional remedies, some like those of the Irish travellers which are guarded jealously, are still common particularly in the country. I guess that many were panaceas but others must have had beneficial effects. Soreness of the mouth was said to be cured by chewing yellow root, ginger tea would bring out the measles in a child, green walnut juice was believed to be beneficial for ringworm and adding a spoonful of baking soda to mashed potatoes was thought to prevent diarrhoea. A drop of turpentine on a teaspoon of sugar was said to cure worms and the good old Worcestershire farming cure for sore eyes is to get someone to chew on an ivy leaf and spit in your eye. My grandmother was not one for fancy medicines. She swore that if you bathe your feet in a hot mustard bath you could cure a running cold. She also possessed a firm belief in the efficacy of onions to ward off infection and illness. I never visited her if I felt poorly for she would make for the stove to boil an onion in milk. Although my Auntie Nora was sceptical of such home-made remedies, she did, on occasions, admit that there might be some value in alterative treatments. On one visit to a primary school, she came across a grubby and smelly little boy. The boy's chest had been liberally rubbed with fatty and evil-smelling goose grease and he had been sown into his vest for the winter. The teacher informed my aunt that the boy was the healthiest child she taught. When my aunt related this to me, I made a quick exit. I had visions of her reaching for the goose grease.

YP MAG 16/10/10