A Dormitory in the 1930s

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Record Number: 6.104

Record Type: Video

Caption:

In this video clip Frank Cochrane, a former resident, remembered what dormitories were like in the late 1920s and the 1930s at the Royal Albert.

This is a transcript of the video:

DS: When you first came into the hospital how many people did you share a bedroom with, a dormitory?
Frank: How many people slept in one dormitory?
DS: Yeah.
Frank: All the beds was pushed together, right against one another.
DS: What no space in between them?… Was there no space in between them?
Frank: No, no … space at all.
DS: How did you get in?… How did you get in?
Frank: The foot of the bed.
DS: You had to climb up?
Frank: Yes. Oh it was terrible.
…
DS: Frank what was the first ward you came on to?…
Frank: Tetley.
DS: Tetley. And how many people would there be sleeping in the dormitory on Tetley.
Frank: Oh there used to be 70 odd patients on each ward.
DS: Right.
Frank: And there was one big room it would be about – not quite the size of this room and all the beds was in there. They pushed them together.

Notes:

Steve Mee, who appears in the video clip on the extreme left, recalls talking with Frank on another occasion about these same sleeping arrangements on Tetley Ward. Frank's memory was along the lines of:

The beds was so close together that you had to climb in the end of the bed, there was no room at the sides. It didn’t matter which way up you slept. One way you could smell their bad breath all night and the other way you could smell their feet.

Keywords:

1920s 1930s Privacy Tetley Male