Philip Age 10
Height 4'8", Weight 5st 5lb 8oz May 1967
Height 4'10", Weight 5st 10lb Nov 1967
At the end of the tests, if you had done everything the people in white coats had asked, you might have a photo as a souvenir.
At the National Children's Home during my stay, I was one of the children that was part of the growth study tests that were made over several years on children that were living at the Home.
The Child Growth Tests were done by J. M. Tanner & R. H. Whitehouse at The National Children's Home at Harpenden Herts for the Institute of Child Health, and funded by the Ministry of Health.
"Professor Tanner retired some years ago, but one of his colleagues remembers his work and the studies which were carried out.
When Professor Tanner retired, all the photographs and negatives remained at the Institute, and were stored in a fire-proof steel-lined room.
In 1998, this room was converted into a laboratory, and it was decided that all the contents should be destroyed.
The photographs and negatives were carefully removed and destroyed by a professional company which specialises in the incineration of highly confidential material."
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Many Ex NCH children (now aged 40 to 60) breath a sigh of relief.
but.......
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Except for those photographs that are in medical archives around the world........
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Every possible part of a child growing up was recorded in some form, from what we ate, how often we wet the bed, how we developed and a range of other findings that would be of use to child carers - we were a captive audience.
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Our regular visits for the Growth Study Tests every three months were welcomed by most of us. An entire morning off school was something of a treat.
Part of the old school at Highfield was used for our tests. Since the school had closed down, two thirds of the building was now used as a main hall for various group meetings, the reaming third of the hall had been turned into the specialist area for our medical tests.
The medical part of the hall was only use for these tests and was closed off when not in use.
Only about 10% of the children at our Home were involved with the tests, less than 1% of the entire NCH children.
In any one session there were normally only about 8 to 10 to be seen at any one time, boys were seen separately from girls, so there was no problem in entering the hall and going into a side area to take our clothes off, we were allowed to be in underpants or waterproof pants for some of the tests.
The various tests were on weight, height, puberty development, bone structure. As most were more complicated than ordinary visits to a doctor, and as information was to be gathered over several years, time was spent in measuring and recording the data.
We could be embarrassed when the staff touched certain parts of our body during the tests when we were without our underpants, on occasions a few of us experienced erections. With the others occupied with their own part of the test, it was generally only the staff that witnessed our embarrassment. At our young age, we did not understand why things like this should happen. If this had been in front of the Sisters or a Houseparent we could have expected some form of punishment; the medical staff took little notice of us.
Another part of our tests were photographs done without any clothes on, with only doctors and no NCH staff around, there was not really any embarrassment to be seen like this. We were positioned on a turntable in one area of the hall, with a camera at a distance away. Four photographs were then taken full length of us standing perfectly still with our hands at our sides from front, back and each side. To allow accuracy and that we did not move our body positions between each shot, the turntable moved in a fixed quarter turn for each photograph.
The other test was a series of x-rays, this was done alone in a more enclosed area of the hall as our final test. We would be provided with a pair of plastic pants to put on, these could go over our underpants if they were not too bulky..
For a boy of seven, the only reason in our minds why you would be provided with such a garment was to stop you having to ask to go to the toilet at an inconvenient moment, wetting yourself would then cause few problems. The doctors never asked us if we needed to visit the toilet and we never asked to go, simply holding on as long as possible before having an accident, at the end of the x-rays we changed out of these waterproofs, and if in luck back into our own waterproofs stopping our shorts showing any form of dampness. When you were to wear the x-ray waterproofs after another boy had worn them earlier day, they were often soaked on the inside, at the age of eight, this started me peeing in the waterproofs during the x-rays, my crime was never noticed by any of the adults.
At our ages we could understand little about the complexes of x-rays, and that these plastic pants had a thin layer of lead inside them, even if we were older learning that x-rays could be dangerous to certain parts of the body, might have introduced even more fear.
The x-ray session seemed to take the longest part of the tests, positioning the machine to take the x-rays of our hand & wrist, jaw, head, calf, thigh, arm, chest. The boring part of these x-rays, was standing still once positioned over the machine, whilst the doctor went away to another area.
Having time off school, made up for any discomfort and embarrassment we might go through.
As a reward, once we had dressed back into our school clothes, if there was time available, we could be rewarded with our own photograph, of us standing on the turntable.
On occasions if you were one of the last to be seen, it was thought that if you returned to school late you might miss your lunch; you were allowed to have the remaining afternoon off school. Those of us that had the dislike of afternoon games and PE lessons, made sure we were always the last ones to be seen during our test sessions.