My childhood was spent in dreadful tenement slum housing and because of that, I seemed to contract everything illness.
I was exposed to TB, suffered Hepatitis, Scarlet Fever twice, Chickenpox and German measles.
But despite Birmingham housing I am still here.
Here is my memory as an 8 year old, of German Measles.
I hadn't felt well on the Sunday and Aunt Nell made me sleep overnight at their house. The following morning I still felt rotten, so Aunt Nell decided that school was out and and that she should take me home on the bus.
Aunt Nell sat us at the front of the bus so that I could peer through the back of the drivers compartment and watch the driver change gear and turn a large dial with a point on it that indicated wether he was turning left or right. The drivers compartment held little interest that morning. I can remember the oily smell that came up from the floor of the bus it made me feel even more nauseous.
I managed not to throw up until I got home. My mother had that set look, which told me she was concerned. She said she would send for the doctor.
"Not feeling too well old chap?" he said, putting his brown leather bag on the bed. He was a young locum that was standing in for a crusty old Scottish doctor who normally came.
He took out his stethoscope. "Breath in...... out......in........out. Hmmm.........Say Ahhrrrr! Fine. Get some sleep."
I waited for my mother.
I'd had chickenpox once. It wasn't to bad at the beginning, but when the lumps came up the desire to scratch was all consuming. I had to wear green woollen mittens so that if I did scratch it wouldn't break the skin and leave a scar.
Scarlet fever twice. At the beginning I felt very sick, quite a lot of vomiting, although I never had much of a fever and I didn't turn scarlet.
I turned a sort of bright yellow ochre once, when I had jaundice, not unlike the yellow film wrapped around a Lucozade bottle. My colour upset my sister more than me. She didn't like to think that she might catch it and go the same colour. Jaundice lasted along time, so that I didn't go to school for weeks.
"You've got measles. You'll be off school for a week at least." My mother plumped up the pillow, tucked in the ends of the sheet and said that she would look in later.
I fell asleep.
I woke up, the sun was streaming into the room, the late afternoon sun. "How long have I been asleep ?"
"You've been asleep for over twenty four hours, how do you feel ?" [I felt disoriented.] "Thirsty."
"I've bought you some Lucozade, try to drink some."
We always had Lucozade if we were really sick.
To relieve the boredom of lying in bed I would view the room through the yellow cellophane wrapper of the Lucozade. Changing the colour of the sky to green.
I sipped from the glass. Even without the wrapper it had the colour of pee. It had a sharp acidic taste, that confirmed you were unwell.
My brother's head looked into the room. "I'm not coming in. I don't want measles. Would you like to read this," he tossed a book onto the bed, his head disappeared and he clumped down the wooden stairs.
I lay back on the pillow. I looked at the ceiling and listened to the sounds of early evening. Children back from school were laughing. A skipping rope slapping the blue bricks in the yard, a car, a train puffing its way up north, past the red back to back houses of Shakespeare Road.
I must have fallen asleep again because the cold white light on the ceiling told me it was now morning.
Different sounds now. A pigeon on the roof was cooing, I could hear the feet scratching above my head on the slates.
Music came from the wireless downstairs. "Housewives Choice." The top of the window was open and the curtains gently flapped. I could hear the women talking in the yard as they did their washing. "He never did!" I wondered what he never did.
I had porridge for breakfast. I was allowed a whole spoonful of Lyles Golden Syrup to sweeten it. " Golly I must be ill."
There on a table beside the bottle of Lucozade next to the bed was a paperback book, my brother had tossed to me.
"Tiger Squadron" by Wing Commander L.T. Jones.
The cover of the book showed a Spitfire, red, white and blue roundels, closely followed by a Messerschmitt Me109 with it's black crosses, above them white curving trails in a pale blue sky. The sun slowly slipped across the wallpaper and warmed the room. I slipped down between the cotton sheets and into the pages. As I read on I began to learn and then to feel what it must be like to fly a Hurricane, and later the Spitfire.
I learned the rates of climb for both aircraft.
Not to fly straight and level for more than 30 seconds in the combat area.
If you have the height you have the advantage.
The silhouette of a Heinkel 111, a Dornier 17, or the blind spots of a Junker 88.
That I could out turn a 109, but not out dive it.
That to stop my engine missing at the top of a loop I could flick the aircraft into a half roll and complete the loop without losing power. The Battle of Britain took place in my bedroom all over again.
In the battle the position of the sun was crucial. If you were a pilot it was your blind spot. The advantage went to those who had the height and attacked with sun behind them. I became more aware of the sun's influence on my room. Its brightness. The angle of the shadows it cast around the room.
From the sounds I could hear in the yard I could tell it was now close to dinner time. I could hear the saucepans in the kitchen and the sound of cupboard doors being open and shut. There was a lull in the battle when Mom brought up a bowl of tomato soup with two or three slices white bread.
In five hours I had learnt to fly a Spitfire.
I closed the book and lay back on the pillow.
There were Messerschmitts and Spitfires wheeling around the blue sky inside my head.
If the doctor had looked in just then, he would have seen RAF roundels in my eyes and black crosses and swastikas on my tongue, a rash of Stukas on my back.
He would have been forced to the conclusion, that I now had contracted German measles.
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