Childhood Memories of Mapperley Hospital 1956-67

I lived in a Mapperley hospital house on Porchester Road from 1956 until we moved to Ipswich in 1967, when I was 11 years old. My father worked at St. Ann’s and the Mapperley Hospital as an EEG technician, which is why I, along with my mother, brother and sister lived in a hospital house - it came with his job. My father worked for Dr. Walter Fabisch, and from time to time we would visit my Dad in the EEG Department and Dr. Fabisch would say hello to us.

I remember the hospital house as being enormous, with a large garden at the back, and that it always seemed to be cold in the house. While the first half of the garden was well-tended with a lawn, a fantastic tree for climbing and some brick outbuildings, the bottom half was wild - as evidenced in the photo below, showing my brother and sister in the untended part. 

We didn’t roam around the hospital grounds, but we were allowed to walk along the “pipeline” from Mapperley Hospital down to St. Ann’s which I always found very exciting. The pipeline roughly followed Porchester Road, and as I remember it consisted of paving slabs on top of an underground pipe which ran between the two hospitals. I think it carried steam heat. 

I do remember going to the Mapperley Hospital Staff Christmas Parties, the highlight of which was being able to sit on a fake reindeer (until you got too big) and of course meeting Father Christmas. Every child received a gift although I can’t remember any of them. 

Helen Darbyshire (aka @balisally on Twitter)

Helen on a fake reindeer, Mapperley hospital staff Christmas party.