When I began this project into the collective memories of a community dealing with a taboo disease I little dreamt that it would include having men breaking down and crying on the phone as they re-lived memories of 50 years ago.
Listening to a tape recording of one such interview yesterday -I couldn't help wondering how much more suppressed grief there is around this subject not only in the country but other countries too where they imposed this strict militaristic regime on children often in prison like conditions.
One interesting development is that another group has sprung up in the Southampton area which is beginning to explore its own medical history and they have started a blog too.
This photo of Winnie Gardiner ( if I manage to upload it on my Apple without having to resort to my partner's PC again!) is of a child who spent five years in this remote TB sanatorium and was treated for a disease she never had.
She came home aged nearly six years on calipers, a cripple from so many years in bed. Many years later it was discovered she had celiac disease, an allergy to gluten.
I don't believe it!…..I have just had an email from a girl I met in Iceland some 40 years ago.
She was a student , part of an expedition, and I was working in the British Embassy ( better not to ask what I was doing).
She is interested in medical history and she is thinking of doing an MA, She had picked up some leaflets and brochures from The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine and read an article on my project.
It is uncanny the way things are slotting together. Yesterday I edited an interview with an ex-patient now living in California who still has her original diaries from Craig-y-nos and another, still living in Wales, who has the same doll that was with her throughout her three years in hospital.
Who writes history?
I ask this question after reading Jan Morris book:”The Matter of Wales”.
I do not recognise this country she portrays which is described as a “magnificent celebration of Wales and all things Welsh”, a country drenched in druids, mystic folk tales, grand houses and endless battles with the world I am writing about in “The Children of Craig-y-nos”.
On closer reading it is a book sourced on secondary or tertiary material – she has read extensively on Welsh literature cultures, history,likewise she has travelled widely throughout in Wales.
But has she spoken to the people?
There are a few paragraph eulogising the Welsh sheepdog. Fair enough.
She has watched some farmers are work.
But there is no mention of the poverty stricken disease riddled world of the Welsh valleys in South Wales during the industrial revolution and even up to the 20th century, a world where women who had TB were forced to have abortions part of a unspoken programme of unspoken eugenics (“ we were told not to have children…if we did we were forced to have an abortion.,..they said it was for our own good”) and how this shaped the lives of men and women who were little more than serfs owned by rich English mine owners.
Not even one sentence.
No, this is the comfortable history of Wales.
This is the official side of Wales: cultured in a quaint, charming, folksy kind of way produced from secondary and tertiary source material.
It has nothing to do with raw world of primary source material- ( oral history) the voices' of people from 50 60 even 90 years ago that’s the basis of ”The Children of Craig-y-nos”.
I am disappointed for Jan Morris is a travel writer I much admire.
I have come across several accounts of children who tried to run away from Craig-y-nos, were caught and punished.
But only one who actually succeeded.
In fact she was a young woman. Her "escape" was remarkably easy: she simply walked out with the visitors and caught the bus home, a journey that took several hours and across the mountain range of the Brecon Beacons.
But it was dangerous thing to do because if you ran away then doctors would refuse to treat you. In the case of Eileen Hill though the doctor ignored the regulations and continued to treat her.
My 2,000 words a day regime is slipping – instead of 7.30am it is nearer 8.30am before I switch on the computer. Still we are getting there..
For relaxation I trawl through some of the other blogs on this site and I am fascinated to read the ones from Glasgow School of Art as they prepare for their degree show.
Seven years ago that was me.
