Boils in the Neck

A Boil in the Neck

This will bring horror to a lot of you I suppose, but in the 1940's & early 50's the work place was completely different as it is today, people didn't take a day off cause they had a hang-over, or a headache, or worst of all didn't feel like it.

Going to work each morning, if you started at 8:00am, as most of the ship-yards did, if you clocked in at 08:01am, you were stopped 15 minutes, clock in at 08:16, you were stopped 30 minutes and so on

In the 1940's & early 50's, Boils on your neck were rife, and it was a common sight to see folk with a large bandage round their neck holding in a " Bread Poultice ", the boils on your neck were so painful, but men had to go to work, and believe me they were in agony with every movement they made

No my mother had lots of visitors, I think it was because my mothers mother was Nurse Barr, and I'm sure she passed on lot's of skills on home doctoring to mother

A bottle of Scotch or a bottle of wine ( Lanlique ) seemed to be the pain killer she used, I'll never forget the first scream I heard when I lived in Poplar Street, I thought someone was getting murdered, honestly, I remember running for the door, from then on Mother warned me and I went " Out to Play ", but I was so curious and asked to be shown what happens

There was a knack on when to minister her treatment, the boil had to be at a certain stage, her patient was plied with drink until he felt brave enough or didn't care about pain, which mostly took the bottle of Wine or Whisky, Mother would get a Milk Bottle, a darning needle, now she knew exactly how much paper to use, it was so important

She would sit the man on the chair, sterilize the needle, she would then put the piece of paper in the Milk Bottle, light the paper, prick the boil with the needle, then place the neck of the Milk 

Bottle over the head of the boil, the lit paper would cause a vacuum then sucking the root out of the boil, and no matter how much drink the had, they screamed believe me, BUT !!! minutes later the relief on the men were brilliant, Mother was well known in Gibshill of getting rid of boils and many, many Gibby folk called for her treatment