Transcription Code:MG201301
Interviewer: Andrea Artz
Interviewee: Hazel Reed
Transcriber: Andrea Artz
Interview Summary - Track 1 (00:00:00 - 01:04:4)
(00:00:00.0 - 00:06:30.0)
Hazel Reed is 77 years old and was born in Holborn in 1936.
She became first involved with the centre because she wanted to change her job.
She applied to an advert in the Islington Gazette for working as a clinic nurse at
Manor Gardens.
The job covered the whole of Islington, but Manor Gardens (MG) only covered part of
the whole. She worked in the clinic area and welcomed parents with newborn babies
once the midwives had finished looking after them. She weighed the babies,
welcomed parents and handed them over to the health visitor.
She also worked and ran the vision clinic with an optician and ophthalmologist,
testing eyes up to 6 years old. Mr Whitman the optician used to make the glasses.
The clinic was sadly stopped. Her other job was family planning, an evening clinic for
those parents who worked.
She was also doing minor ailments for school children, like verrucas on feet, which
she liked doing. That is how Hazel got to know the schools in the area of N7.
On Monday afternoons she also worked in a sub clinic on Isledon Road and
welcomed parents and received babies alongside doctors.
Hazel worked full time as a clinic nurse, 8 hours a day. She also visited schools, like
Grafton School to help the school nurses find lice.
I used to go there to look at heads and find unwanted visitors which were
head lice. They don't do that now which is really quite sad…not everyone's
favourite job, but funny enough it was mine because it was contact with
children because I love children, quite sincerely, all children all ages, even
teenagers.
She also did hearing tests at school working alongside doctors and school nurses.
(00:06:02.3 - 00:15:20.0)
Hazel got involved because of her love for the children. She had been a nurse for a
long time before Manor Gardens. Manor Gardens was not her favourite job, though
in the end, but she worked there for 8 years. Her favourite job was premature babies
in the hospital. Manor Gardens was an easy job, but difficult at the beginning,
although she had done harder work before. She worked there from 1975 until 1988
when she retired.
Hazel experienced Islington as a poor area back then in the 1970's and sad
sometimes. MG had quite a few difficult families to work with, but she involved
herself and did some research. She was always interested in her jobs.
Hazel felt her life was a bit boring, sometimes she felt at work she couldn’t use her
head as she wanted to and as she used to in the hospital. It was all women working
together. Hazel did also know Women's Therapy, upstairs, but she thinks people
didn't like it. In the end she was glad to leave Manor Gardens. She liked working with
Transcription Code:MG201301
Interviewer: Andrea Artz
Interviewee: Hazel Reed
Transcriber: Andrea Artz
Angela and they laughed a lot, but they thought that nurses at that time had an old
fashioned way about them. They didn't move with the time, but she feels she did.
'I used Women's Therapy myself'. Hazel's mother died in 1983 and she needed to
get some help after that. She would not say anything bad about WTC, but the other
nurses didn't like it at the time.
The children who came to the centre, some were difficult and some were badly
behaved. Some parents were inadequate. They also did have ex Holloway prison
girls coming to the centre (she asks if it is better to take this off) and she didn't see
them misbehave, but others. On Fridays there were people from India with a
translator or medical care. Hazel thinks that sometimes they were not well
understood. They were living in the homeless family unit in Hackney, a family of five
living in one room. Sometimes they went there to look after the babies.
Hazel thinks she and the stuff sometimes didn't understand how they lived in their
home country, but their job was looking after the children not the family as a whole.
(00:15:30.0 - 00:22:01.3)
For Hazel the clinic area at MG was not big enough. All the parents were sitting
around and she used to get quite claustrophobic. There were all these other clinics
coming in using up the space, which created a lot of friction in the centre. They used
to joke about it:
There was a bit of division between the three, top, middle and bottom part of
Manor Gardens, quite a division. We used to joke about it…upstairs,
downstairs…silliness really.
WTC was upstairs and family planning as well, but later moved downstairs and WTC
stayed upstairs. People didn't like the word family planning, the old fashioned thing. It
was not very good when schoolgirls came to the family planning.
Over the years always other groups were coming in and people complained because
it created more work. There were gay groups as well 'that's another unspeakable
thing back then'. Also, they received phone calls for the gay centre and for the
holiday theme. Hazel thinks it was not fair to send the Islington kids on holiday by
Islington council money while she never went on holidays herself as a child.
Back then there were 2 - 4 volunteers, all women. They used to sell the milk and
stayed for a long time.
Hazel was friendly with the school nurses because they understood her ways, but
she didn't have much contact with the health visitors. She feels she did know much
more about sick children. She feels there was always a hierarchy in nursing anyway.
She only made one friend and that was Angela the other clinic nurse, but they are
not in contact anymore. She didn't make other friends, 'it's a bit of an English
thing…and I mean an English thing.. I have been abroad.'
(00:22:30. - 00:31:41)
Transcription Code:MG201301
Interviewer: Andrea Artz
Interviewee: Hazel Reed
Transcriber: Andrea Artz
Hazel showed me [Andrea] her photographs of the centre; Mary who used to work at
the office; Angela the other clinic nurse, who was Italian and she got on so well with;
a celebration of the health visitor Uma; Ronny who left to work at another health
centre in Horsey Rise. Then they all left and the Manor Gardens closed altogether as
a baby clinic.
Hazel took all the photographs because back then she was really interested in
photography and even took a workshop and she did the developing and printing
herself. There is also a lady who worked downstairs she became friendly with and
Katie who is now at College; another one changing babies nappies and things.
Then there is a photograph of a mural somebody painted on a wall; someone did it
over the weekend.
And then we [Andrea and Hazel] looked at some books and the photographs inside
that a friend let her borrow about the Manor Gardens Centre history.
There is a photo of the Queen’s visit, but Hazel never met the Queen at Manor
Gardens, she was at school, but she met her at some other event.
Hazel remembers that MG had no home helps, but after she left sometimes midwifes
came to MG.
On a 1973 photograph of mums, there are some black mothers as well and Hazel
remembers reading that the first black people came over in the 60's and 70's, 'and
English people, white people were not very nice to them, nope’. At MG it was Ok, it
was not to bad at all. She feels that she has a better understanding for them because
of her own background.
We had lots of black health visitors. There was Faye, she was nice girlie. Not
many actually when I think about it. Joyce, an older health visitor wanted to
set up a first …. Sickle cell anaemia … Sounds awful to say this, but I believe
this because the black person here wasn't looked into as much as the white
person, sickle cell could be quite overlooked.
Joyce wanted to set up set up a special clinic for them in the Royal Northern. Joyce
set it up but it fell apart and she went back to the West Indies or Jamaica to do
something there.
(00:31:41 - 00:41:09:6)
MG had a fathers group but it didn't work out, just 2 men turned up and it didn't go
any further.
Hazel remembers that there used to be a light therapy because children lacked
sunlight and were neglected by their families. But when she worked at MG it was
already finished. Wendy Franks would have been a better person to interview about
that, she was spot on.
Ann Jennings ran the nursery and started at the same time as Hazel. All the other
pioneers like Lady Crossfield are in the book [75 year celebration book – ‘Under One
Roof’] and in 1988 it was beginning to close down.
Transcription Code:MG201301
Interviewer: Andrea Artz
Interviewee: Hazel Reed
Transcriber: Andrea Artz
Hazel was involved in the hearing tests for tiny babies up to the age of five, and the
verucca clinic. She remembers the Stroke club where she went to see if anyone
needed anything.
Hazel met Mrs Davis, who was an elderly lady when she left. Geraldine Davis she
would let you know if she didn't like you, but she liked Hazel. They were right up
there. She shook hands once with Tim Davis, but she never really met them,
because they were in higher positions. She knew:
Wendy Franks, I forgotten her title- Miss Franks- you couldn't tell her that,
very rare, I always hated that - Ms Reed - but the mum's would call me Hazel
when no-one was listening.
Wendy opened the homeless family unit on Holloway Road, she worked a lot and
she used to invite parents over to have health checks at MG, some were quite
characters, some from Holloway Prison. Wendy was excellent on the health side and
she did a lot after she had left MG. She became an OBE for her work at MG and she
was never off duty and became in charge when the other lady died. She was a
trained nurse and health visitor and Hazel were friendly with her. They used to be
called geriatric nurses, but Hazel hated that word but that changed. Wendy was the
boss, but she always did her clinics. Sadly she died 2 years ago.
(00:41:09:6 - 00:46:13)
The MG centre was another interesting job and it was varied and she could go out in
the community and meet parents.
One mum, a mother I am going to have Easter with. I met her .. this is an
example.. One day this lady came to Manor Gardens with her 2 month old
baby, they would tell me their background stories, and she became friendly
with me….
But when that baby became about a year the little boy had an epileptic fit. She said
she ran up the road and didn't know what to do at all and it stopped and she asked
me what she can do at another time. Hazel never wanted to make a mum feel silly,
so she suggested not to run up the road, but to make sure the baby is safe and ring
the GP because there is nothing else one can do. After that Hazel and the mum
became friendly, Hazel was invited for a coffee and they are still friends today. Hazel
asked Wendy if this is OK and ethical, but it was OK. Someone gave the mum
Hazel's phone number, which was not OK, but since then they have been friends.
The baby is now 30 years old with his own family. They needed a lot of help back
then and Hazel was their background help.
(00:46:13.0 - 00:51:20)
They had get-togethers sometimes at MG. There was a leaving party for Hazel. She
was laid off when she was 58 only and she feels she didn't leave in really good
terms. She feels they started to get rid of people over a certain age to get younger
people in. Hazel didn't want to give injections in an unsafe environment that was her
argument; the clinics were packed with children. She had to stop to write down all the
details of the children and then give another injection, and she was worried to give
Transcription Code:MG201301
Interviewer: Andrea Artz
Interviewee: Hazel Reed
Transcriber: Andrea Artz
the right ones. She then refused to give injections and she feels that this was used
as an argument to make her go, but that is her version of what was happening. She
thinks she still did her job well but she had that big interview. And Wendy Franks
made sure that she had a farewell party, which she didn't actually want.
They had meetings first thing in the mornings and sometimes get-togethers when
someone was leaving like Una who had a baby. Apart from that there were not many
gatherings and no Christmas parties, sometimes tea or coffee.
One day Women's Therapy come down and give us a little tea/coffee morning
to say a little more about what they were doing upstairs. … Women's Therapy
- again, it was almost unspoken of, I might have that wrong, but I don't think
so. This one I remember, I wasn't always there, I had to go somewhere else,
and this particular morning they spoke about bereavement …or child abuse
we had to watch a little bit of. I think they came down about child abuse or
women’s battering, and things like that. Almost unheard of things,
but…there’s a lot of it about. But this lady came down to tell us what they
were doing. If we found any mothers who we thought might have been
abused then we could send them, again that wasn’t my job, the health
visitor's job, or Wendy Franks in charge of the whole thing. Miss Franks, I felt
again it might be wrong, liked to deal with her own parents’ problems against
Women’s Therapy…I’m touching on rough ground here. I’m not anti…It’s a
shame I couldn’t be more involved…I wanted to me, but it wasn’t my job.
(00:51:20 - 00:59:54.2)
If she could change anything, Hazel thinks accepting would have been very
important, for example she feels that Women's Therapy was the most misunderstood
therapy there and also the mental health therapy. She herself had a breakdown and
used their help. Also if she would go back now, she would have more confidence
now to do things, and child abuse would be number one, and abuse of all sorts, and
a therapy to help all these people.
When she left MG she was very unhappy and thought she would never work again,
particularly work with children because she really loves children. The school nurse
Dawn suggested she should start helping with schools and she went for an interview
and worked at Grafton School for 23 years and there was never any nasty thing said
about her. When she worked at the school she also worked with the children she had
seen grow up at MG.
When I went there I met the children I worked with at Manor Gardens, so I
can say categorically, that I’ve watched half of Islington grow up…2 weeks
old, up to have their own babies, that’s how old I am…I’m 77 and going back
to the school, I loved every minute of it.
Hazel applied as a volunteer and during the interview she told them that she had a
breakdown and why she had left at MG and they understood her. Mrs Sergides was
the head teacher at Grafton School and Hazel had seen her baby grow up at MG to
be a doctor. Nowadays she jokes with him that she was the nurse who weighed him
back then and that he used to wee on the scales and he blushed.
Transcription Code:MG201301
Interviewer: Andrea Artz
Interviewee: Hazel Reed
Transcriber: Andrea Artz
Hazel feels that at the school she was allowed to use her own brain and she did talks
on medical asthma, photography and used her medical skills as well. She thinks it
would have been nice to be able to do that at MG a bit more.
Hazel remembers that MG was popular and many people came there. Unfortunately
MG stopped doing eye clinics, verukas and minor ailments and new things came in.
She knew mothers that didn't come anymore because she had left.
Hazel gained a lot of knowledge about people and how they lived, while working at
MG. She had never known how homeless families live before that. She also met
people who came as immigrants and lived in the homeless family unit. She hopes
that people are kind to them, because she feels a lot of people don't want
immigrants. She mingled with Chinese, Greek and Cypriot children and parents and
learned something from them.
(01:00:00 - 01:04:04.4)
Hazel was very proud of going to the school, working in a school. She had always
wanted to work at a school. She still remembers walking there with the school nurse
and saying that she wants to work there. And she had built up a good relationship
with the head teacher; those are the things she is proud of. She could still be there.
Hazel is not involved with MG anymore and she does't know about the current
situation there, but the interview made her curious to see what is going on now at the
centre.
Hazel thinks MG is still a good place and it was fantastic work they did there and still
do and is still very much needed in Hackney and the Islington areas. She now lives in
Hampstead, which has a very different clientele.
She is surprised to get know that the centre is still open these days. She would be
interested if Women's Therapy is still going, but she can't think of anything she would
change. She enjoyed the interview a lot.
Interview Summary - Track 2 (00:00:00 - 00:03:1)
Hazel is repeating a story of a mum (interrupted by a phone ringing) who had a twoweek-old baby boy who developed epileptic fits. Hazel gave good advice to the
mother and later became good friends with her. The baby is now 38 years old, and
she is still friendly with the parents with the parents to this day and she is going to
have Easter with them this Sunday.
End of the Interview