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Moseley Hall Childrens Hospital

J

JanA

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When I was in Moseley Hall Hospital in the late 1950's having my tonsils out, I'm sure I remember a herd of cows outside the ward window. Now I'm wondering, were there really cows or had Nurse given me some drugs!!! Can anyone throw some light on this please? JanA
 
Re: Moseley Hall Children's Hospital

Hi JanA, welcome to the forum.
I can confirm cows and horses were kept in the 32 acre grounds of Moseley Hall, during it's time as a children's hospital and it was one of the few things I remember about my stay there to have my tonsils removed in 1952-53. They were there possibly up until 1967 when the hospital was closed as a children's hospital and reopened as a geriatric hospital after a new ward block was built.
There is still a building that remains on the site adjacent to the Dovecote, known as the Cow House.
https://moseley-society.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=31
The building you would have been in, is still in use as an administration block, and is known as "The Old Hall".
How do I know, I worked there for 28 years.
See my website for further details https://www.bhamb14.co.uk/index_files/MOSELEYHALLHOSPITAL.htm
I have moved this post to the Hospitals thread, where you will see a number of references to Moseley Hall

Colin
 
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Hello ColinB, of no importance whatsoever but I went through the tonsil machine at Moseley Hall in 1953 so you could have warmed up the bed for me!

I remember the post op ice cream and my parents trying to distract me with lies about cows outside!
 
Yes I was in Moseley, in 1965/6 aged about 5 having my tonsils out...dont remember any cows but do remember the ice cream and a 'sadistic' matron telling me Icouldnt go home unless I ate my breakfast of scrambled egg which I detested then as I do 40 odd years later, wonder what they thought when they stripped the bed to find plateful hidden under the blankets
 
Thanks to everyone who replied to my cows question and put me out of my misery. That place must have specialised in tonsillectomies! I had to smile when I read about the ice cream comments, I remember that too. I also remember vividly crying after my my mom left me on my first day, I was really upset as it was the first time I'd ever left home so I went under the bedclothes and snuffled - then I heard a nurse shouting "Who's crying??" I thought she was going to tell me off so I stayed under the sheets and tried to keep quiet, but on reflection she may have been wanting to comfort me.
 
Re: Moseley Hall Children's Hospital

Hi JanA, welcome to the forum.
I can confirm cows and horses were kept in the 32 acre grounds of Moseley Hall, during it's time as a children's hospital and it was one of the few things I remember about my stay there to have my tonsils removed in 1952-53. They were there possibly up until 1967 when the hospital was closed as a children's hospital and reopened as a geriatric hospital after a new ward block was built.
There is still a building that remains on the site adjacent to the Dovecote, known as the Cow House.
https://moseley-society.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=31
The building you would have been in, is still in use as an administration block, and is known as "The Old Hall".
How do I know, I worked there for 28 years.
I have moved this post to the Hospitals thread, where you will see a number of references to Moseley Hall

Colin

Little did I know that in 1945 when I passed the " Dolls house " ( thats what I called It ) on the 35 bus from the Maypole that in Feburary 1946 I would pass it has a patient, My stay lasted till July 1946 I was 13 at the time. I had been transfered from the Children's in Ladywood Road where I had been since November 1945.
 
Came across this thread when searching Moseley Hall Hospital. It's been a while since it was posted on, but I too remember the animals. I also remember being given a small glass of brown liquid to drink which put me to sleep before having my tonsils and adenoids out in 1956. Remember the suffocating feeling which was no doubt the gas mask being put over my face even though I was asleep. 30 years later in Hampshire I visited my GP, who told me he was an ENT at Moseley Hall in the 50's and it could well have been him who took my tonsils out. Small world.
 
How funny, we were talking about Moseley Hall at work this week too, one of my colleagues remembers it as a childrens hospital, complete with the farm animals and produce, but by the time I trained, it was a geriatric rehabilitation hospital, lovely placement with all sorts of gardening and activities for the residents - and the nurses home there was great, huge rooms and the cook used to feed us too!!
Sue
 
I had pneumonia in the summer of 1963 and was sent to Moseley Hall. I remember being in a massive room with very tall windows. The only other occupant was a Polish (I think) girl who couldn’t speak any English and I can’t remember her name now. We had a lot of fun trying to communicate. I don’t know why she was in hospital but her parents didn’t understand that she wasn’t allowed to eat the fruit and biscuits they brought in for her, so they used to pass it all on to me! At first, I was apparently delirious with either the illness or the drugs, so at visiting time my mother used to help the nurses feed a small girl from the Caribbean in the room next door who had serious burns from a paraffin fire at home. My mother later told me how this child was always so happy, smiling and singing, despite her pain. I remember it as a very friendly place, unlike the Birmingham Eye Hospital where I had to have an operation a few years earlier at the age of 9. That place was unfriendly, depressing and it gave me the creeps!
 
My older brother Allen was a patient there when he was four years old, he had double pneumonia and was there for months,
They got him through it despite at that time, 1936, it was something of a miracle.
 
”Following the success of the Jaffray, in 1891, Moseley Hall was donated to the city by Richard Cadbury, of the confectionary family, to be used as a convalescent home. The immediate benefit, however, was again realised by the Children's Hospital, as twenty of the institution's fifty beds were reserved specifically for its young patients. Consequently, the hospital's cottage in Alvechurch was closed after sixteen years, 1,383 children having each spent several weeks recovering at Copper's Hill and Arrowfield Top during this period.62 During the next nine years, another 1700 convalescent children, many with diseased bones and joints, would be sent to Moseley Hall after being treated by the Children's Hospital's medical staff.…Under a new scheme, the hospital received 15 shillings from the City of Birmingham for each case of surgical tuberculosis treated and greater use of the beds at Moseley Hall Convalescent Home eased the pressure of treating long-term cases.”

Health care in Birmingham : the Birmingham teaching hospitals 1779-1939 by Reinarz, Jonathan. (2009)
 
Yes I was in Moseley, in 1965/6 aged about 5 having my tonsils out...dont remember any cows but do remember the ice cream and a 'sadistic' matron telling me Icouldnt go home unless I ate my breakfast of scrambled egg which I detested then as I do 40 odd years later, wonder what they thought when they stripped the bed to find plateful hidden under the blankets
Me too.... Tonsils out around 1961.... pull up sides on beds & Ice cream after surgery. Remember seeing cows out the window
 
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