Time in Hospital
Ronald Leedham: Home
Ronald Leedham was born in 1929 in India. His family moved back to England in 1931after Ronald contracted Polio. Ronald spent some years in Hospital as a young child after contracting Diptheria. When he was six he returned home to Catford for a short while to live with his father, eventually ending up living in ‘homes for crippled children’ run by the Shaftesbury Society, until he was sixteen.
More from
Ronald Leedham
- I Knew Nothing About Life
- Parlour Songs
- Visits
- Incendiaries in the park
- Oliver Twist and donk
- Sheltering in the Church
- The Glow over London
- Explosives
- Beatings
- Mum
- Shame
- Buzz Bombs and Doodlebugs
- Certificates
- ‘Mummy coming’
- Geography
- Shut Away and Tipped Out
- Visiting every six weeks
- Lead Soldiers
- Greyness
- Oliver Twist
- A Miserable Time
- War starts
- The Walk to Church on Sunday
- Difficult subject
- Boys and girls together
- Suitcases
- No talking
- Awful Sundays
- Cricket at Sevenoaks
- Shelter
- Dogfight
Here Ronald talks about his time in hospital as a young child.
https://howwasschool.allfie.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/home.mp3
Transcript
The doctor came around one day, I’ll always remember it, the doctor came round one day and, I don’t know, I’d heard this word home. I didn’t know what home was, didn’t mean a thing to me at all, but I’d heard this word home from the nurses’ conversations and the other children talking about home and this, that and the other, and they wanted to go home. I didn’t know what it meant, wanting to go home. I’d no conception what home life was meant at all at that time. And I remember saying to the doctor, I can remember saying to him ‘Can I go home?’ And he said ‘We’ll think about that,’ and suddenly I was sent home.Explore more
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