From Christine Bate’s document titled Miss Bamforth.doc

Miss Kathleen Bamforth

When I was four years old, I caught scarlet fever.  The family went to Blackpool for a week’s holiday and then spent the rest of the time away from home in Cumberland.  We were staying at Mother’s parents’ house in Carlisle and I remember being moved into a large, comfortable double bed at the front of the house in Broad Street and being told by Grandma that the doctor was coming to see me.  I don’t recollect the whole conversation but there was some kind of threat that I needed to be good and the doctor was presented as someone to be a little afraid of.  He came and examined me briefly and did not seem at all like the ogre that I had expected as I huddled under the bed clothes in an attempt to hide as he came into the room.  My next memory is of being in an ambulance as I was taken to the isolation hospital in Carlisle, a forbidding grey granite building.  The children’s ward was almost empty, presumably because I had caught scarlet fever in Blackpool and there was no epidemic of any infectious disease at that time in Carlisle.  It must have had about twelve iron beds or cots and was bare-floored and spartan.  At times I was the only child there and then two brothers came and told me tall stories about why they were there.  I didn’t know what to believe of their wild stories, but they were company. 

In 1935 scarlet fever was one of the dreaded diseased from which people died. There was no understanding of the cause and of course no antibiotics or other treatment apart from keeping the patient comfortable and trying to reduce the fever. However, when I began to feel better and was more aware of my surroundings, I began to enjoy myself.  Visitors were not allowed in the hospital and communicated with the patient by standing at the window at the head of the cot (crib) and shouting or mouthing, or just smiling helplessly.  The most important part of the procedure was that, before taking up a position outside the window, they handed in their gifts for the patient at the door.  This was wonderful!  Mary, Edgar’s wife, brought grapes and as soon as I said I didn’t like them, the nurses were only too pleased to take them away and make sure they weren’t wasted.  Mother came at first and then I was given to understand that she had to go back to Yorkshire because my father had to go to work.  He must have gone home as soon as his holilday (vacation time) was over. I missed Mother very briefly and then was more than consoled when a doll’s teaset was brought in to me.  I think Mary brought it, but Auntie Jean also appeared at the window on visiting days and had to stand on a brick because she was very short and couldn’t see into the window.  

The doll’s teaset was a great success and, once I was allowed out of bed, I had doll’s tea parties with real water in the pot, supplied by indulgent nurses who had little else to do.  They spent a lot of time in what I think was the Sister’s sitting room and I went in there too on occasion.  It was furnished with a dark oak table, two easy chairs and a tall bookcase with diamond paned glass in the doors.  A fire burned brightly in the fireplace and the flames were reflected in the glass doors.

All of this indulgence ended when I was given a bath one evening and the next day, Mother came and took me back to Broad Street.  The following day Mother and I, (what a treat to be an only child), went home on the train.  I remember wearing a pale blue fine-knitted cardigan and standing in the corridor for what seemed to me to be much of the journey.  That is really the end of the scarlet fever story except that for many years I had severe pains in my knees. 

 Dr. Sen prescribed antiphlogistine ointment and exercise for my knee pains and I was surprised to find that the ointment is still on sale in the Vermont Country Store catalogue. Apparently it is the best-selling cream of its kind in Canada and has been available since 1919. Anyway, this is where Miss Bamforth enters the story.  Brinsworth did not boast any kind of exercise classes, but Mother found that Miss Bamforth gave dancing lessons in the Parish Hall on Mondays early, right after teatime.  I was duly enrolled and loved the whole program from the first session.  Sheila felt differently, was given the opportunity to attend so that she didn’t feel left out, and did not return after her first visit.  I, on the other hand, stayed in the class until the war began and Miss Bamforth was drafted as an ambulance driver. 

In the class I learned soft-shoe dancing and tap dancing, with a little bit of gymastics included. We rehearsed in the Brinsworth Parish Hall, a fairly new red brick building standing in the corner of a field. It had a large hall, a stage, a few small rooms and two toilets. I remember the toilets because they were objectionably smelly. As the years went by, I began to puzzle over how this came to be built since it was unlike any other building in the village except for the Miner’s Welfare Hall across the bridge over the river Rother in Canklow. It had deal floors and was very dusty. I loved going every Monday and especially looked forward to our performances.  Occasionally we went to another village and performed with members in other classes, but since I was young, I had no idea what went into the arrangements. I do know about the costumes we wore. 

The mothers were told what we had to wear and Mother made my costumes. I remember dancing to “Invitation to the Walz” wearing a loose flowered georgette floating dress. The georgette was from a dress sent to Mother by her cousins in Carlisle, the Stalkers, as part of a parcel of cast-offs that they sent periodically. There were three girls, Minnie, Marjorie and Elsie and a boy, Jackie. Their mother was my grandmother’s twin sister and their father owned a clothing store in Carlisle.  I am reminded of the dance that we did whenever I hear that waltz and can remember all the movements and formations.  Another costume was a red waistcoat with epaulettes, gauntletts and a pill box hat, all edged with gold braid, a white pleated skirt and red tap shoes. We danced to “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” The big performance of the year was at Montgomery Hall in Sheffield. What an exciting evening, to go up to the big city and dance on the stage of a real theatre. All of Miss Bamforth’s classes performed that evening and it was thrilling and frightening to look out over the footlights and see the sea of faces in the audience. I remember having a solo dance to the tune “I Found my Yellow Basket”. I wore a yellow dress and carried a basket and was astounded when someone threw a bunch of violets onto the stage when I took my bow.  Auntie Ethel came to the performances and I was very impressed that she should make the effort. My concept of the geography of Sheffield and its suburbs was rather vague in those days. I think I have written elsewhere that I thought the Sheffield that we went to on the train from Catcliffe on our way “Up North” was not the same Sheffield that we went to on the bus for our infrequent shopping excursions there.