We always knew when the school dentist had arrived – you saw his head bobbing up and down at the windows as he walked along, because he had a wooden leg.
You had a yellow form to take home. It cost 6d for treatment, no matter what you had done. I’ll never forget Mr Cartwright pumping away on his treadle, working the drill.
Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921
I started school one month after I was three – I missed my brothers and sisters so my mother took me to start school. I loved it! I remember there being 74 children on the school roll.
Friday afternoons, if you did well, as a treat you could go round to the rocking horse which was really big, like a galloper at a fair.
School dentist
That also brought back not such good memories because it was in the room the school dentist used. That was terrible ! They used to bring round bright yellow forms to fill in and as soon as I saw these forms I would start feeling afraid.
The dentist’s name was Mr Cartwright and his hand shook; it wasn’t his fault, he suffered from shellshock. To have him as a school dentist was entirely the wrong thing. He operated the drill with a wooden treadle, his foot on the treadle when he started to drill.
His nurse used to say, “Don’t be so stupid! Sit still there”.
‘Its hurting me!’
‘No it’s not.’
I used to be so scared when my turn came. Jim Jupe, when it was his turn to be sent to the dentist, he went home, but I wouldn’t have dared; I’d have been sent back.
Pat Burt nee Adams b 1929