Post by Les on Sept 1, 2017 5:23:09 GMT
Hospitals in Maidstone were not only places to attend when we were ill but also places to meet nurses.
I had stitches inserted on several occasions in the West Kent. My brother spent more than three months in sickbay in the early sixties following a bad motor cycle accident, three weeks here at the West Kent and a further twelve weeks convalescent in Linton. I remember walking round to Marsham Street and seeing him resting on the veranda at the front of the hospital.
Walking through the corridors of the West Kent and seeing medical equipment like iron lungs gave me the creeps. I had many a nightmare over the thoughts of confinement in one of those contraptions. What strange things frighten us when we are young; in the cool light of maturity, the same things have little effect.
My interests were more on the nurse’s home opposite the infirmary, where you had to return them safely before ten thirty, as at that bewitching hour doors locked.
They had some good parties here I recall.
On the north side of Maidstone stood Barming psychiatric hospital that boasted a first class sports club, in fact one of the requirements in the early days in getting a job here was to be a good sportsman or woman.
I remember taking one of the nurses out for a drink, we returned after the bewitching hour of ten thirty and I had to shin up a drain pipe to a first floor window, climb in and make my way to the front door to let her back in.
As well as a good cricket and football team, they had an excellent judo club.
Preston Hall was another Maidstone hospital.
I had stitches inserted on several occasions in the West Kent. My brother spent more than three months in sickbay in the early sixties following a bad motor cycle accident, three weeks here at the West Kent and a further twelve weeks convalescent in Linton. I remember walking round to Marsham Street and seeing him resting on the veranda at the front of the hospital.
Walking through the corridors of the West Kent and seeing medical equipment like iron lungs gave me the creeps. I had many a nightmare over the thoughts of confinement in one of those contraptions. What strange things frighten us when we are young; in the cool light of maturity, the same things have little effect.
My interests were more on the nurse’s home opposite the infirmary, where you had to return them safely before ten thirty, as at that bewitching hour doors locked.
They had some good parties here I recall.
On the north side of Maidstone stood Barming psychiatric hospital that boasted a first class sports club, in fact one of the requirements in the early days in getting a job here was to be a good sportsman or woman.
I remember taking one of the nurses out for a drink, we returned after the bewitching hour of ten thirty and I had to shin up a drain pipe to a first floor window, climb in and make my way to the front door to let her back in.
As well as a good cricket and football team, they had an excellent judo club.
Preston Hall was another Maidstone hospital.