Here is a photo of the chalets at the Knightwick Sanatorium (Many thanks to Robin Taylor, for photos from his mothers collection) It shows how patients beds could be brought out from their rooms on to the veranda to allow them to get fresh air and on hot days to lie in the warmth of the sun.

KNIGHTWICK SANATORIUM.

Mrs Gladys Willcox retains vivid memories of the 16 months she spent as a small girl and TB sufferer at Knightwick Sanatorium in the late 1920s.
She was the youngest of five children of Alfred and Salome Susannah (Susan) Bennett, who lived in a terraced house at 260 Astwood Road, Worcester - a property a few doors from the Chequers pub and overlooking the city's main cemetery.

She and her two brothers and two sisters were all born at No. 260, but at the age of five she was referred to the Worcester TB Clinic, then in Bank Street, to the rear of Simes Departmental Store (later Bobbys and now Debenhams).

"The clinic was run by a Dr Griffin and a lovely nurse, who was very religious and at one stage gave me a thick book as a present," recalls Gladys. "I took that book with me to Knightwick Sanatorium when I was sent there by Dr Griffin as a five year-old in January, 1928.

"Though it's more than 70 years ago, I can still remember the sanatorium as though it was yesterday. You went up the steep hill at Knightwick, through a gate with a lodge beside it, and then along, what seemed to me as a child, to be a very long drive. Beside it was a huge bank lined with cherry trees and, during my time at Knightwick, we were allowed to pick a few fruits off them.

"Next, you came to the large, open-sided chalets with beds laid out on the verandahs behind the white railings. I was put in one of these chalets in an end room, and I well remember my eldest sister Dorothy bringing a water-proof sheet for my bed because we were virtually exposed to all winds and weathers battering us. It was almost like living out of doors."

Her stay at Knightwick also represented something of an ordeal for her mother and family.

"The bus ran only twice a week from Worcester to Knightwick and stopped at The Talbot Hotel, which meant my mother had to traipse all the way up that hill and along the drive. She was only about 5ft tall, quite chubby and insisted on wearing three-inch heel patent court shoes all the time!"

[Taken from an article in the Worcester Evening News, 21st January, 2005]

 ©peh