Memories of quarantine at Leeds Road Hospital

Vincent Finn of Barkerend spent the winter of 1947/48 in Leeds Road Hospital as a boy, with diptheria. He had already been given the last rites by a local priest when the ‘fever ambulance’ came, and spent 16 weeks in a solitary room. “That quarantine is as clear as if it was yesterday,” he says.

Many memories have come in of the old hospital - the building is still in the grounds of Bradford’s Marie Curie Hospice - from people who worked there, were patients or visited loved ones...

Audrey Reedman: “I was there with Scarlet fever. Sobbed my eyes out when my hair was cut in a horrible pudding basin style because it was said long hair sapped your strength.”

Jennifer Brooksbank: “I was there as a baby. I had a number, it was in T&A every night with update of condition.”

Gail Berridge: “A boy came in with typhoid, I had to run down the hall to get the nurses, he was delirious.”

Lynda Gibson: “Our son was in a bubble, we ould only see him through this. It broke our hearts as he was our first born.”

Jane Sedgwick: “Distant memories of being put in a cot with a dummy attached by a string when I was three.”

Vera Hodgson: “Was there in 67 after giving birth, I had jaundice. There was a Staff Nurse Sharp. I remember how nice everything was.”

Mary Lund: “I spent six weeks there aged five in 1952. Our beds were pushed up to the windows at visiting time, we waved to our parents. Really upset when visiting time was over.”

Anne Cullerton: “In a cot in the middle of the ward, a pot-bellied stove next to the cot, remember the cleaner lighting the fire every morning.”

Richard Kaye: “I was based there in the early 80s, part of the NHS mobile gardening team.”

Peter Knapton: “We were in during war, all the street was in with Scarlet fever.”

Lesley Connell: My nan was a nurse there and many years later I nursed there.”

Rene Bartlett: “My three brothers were all in at the same time.”

Vera Rothwell: “My youngest was in with measles. She was a baby and I was breast feeding, I had to take my milk in for her.”

Sandra Moorhouse: “I spent a few weeks there in 1952, a nurse said she’d lock me in the bathroom if I didn’t stop crying. I was only five and have never forgotten it.”

Janet Peers: “Was in isolation for a month with glandular fever, 1962. Not allowed out of bed, I was so bored I knit a jumper and read hundreds of comics.”

Susan Jennings: “My grandma was there in early 1900s with diptheria.”

Joan Durkin: “I was there on my birthday, everyone had a piece of my birthday cake except me!”

Pauline Cannon: “I was in there 1953 with Bell’s Palsy. They didn’t know what it was so I was isolated in a ward. 67 years later the right side of my face is still paralysed.”

Valerie Thompson: “I started my nurse training there in 1970 on elderly male ward then baby ward. Loved every minute working there.”

Frank Connell: "I spent some months in it in 1938 when I was four."

Patricia Wellock: “I was isolated for a month age four with Scarlet fever, thought I’d never go home again.”

Carol Green: “Worked there as a student nurse in 1980, it wasn’t the fever hospital then but still barrier nursing.”

Trixie Wilkinson: “I worked on the baby ward between 1982 and 1986. Loved it.”

Brenda Bradley: “I was in aged five, 1948. My gran lived on Browning Street at the bottom of the hill. I couldn’t walk there because my legs were weak with being in bed. My dad had to carry me.”

Margaret Hockney: “Was there in 1940 with Scarlet fever. I remember ambulance coming and wrapping me in a red blanket.”

Cheryl Orme: “Was a student nurse there in mid-1980s till it sadly closed.”