East, west, home’s not always best, parents told after health trip

IN April 1955, in the House of Commons, North Lanarkshire MP Margaret Herbison spoke on the subject of tuberculosis. From 1945 onwards, she said, TB, and the deaths it caused, was one of the biggest problems faced by successive Scottish Secretaries of State.

TB was also a difficulty for the health authorities in Glasgow. According to Ms Herbison, TB claimed the lives of 100 out of every 100,000 of population in Glasgow in 1949; in 1954, it had provisionally dropped to 33 per 100,000.

The Scottish figures were “very serious”, and Glasgow was a “black spot” compared with Scotland as a whole, she added.

One of the measures that had been introduced saw Scots youngsters who had been in contact with TB cases being packed off to Switzerland. This particular group, from Glasgow, had spent four months in 1951 at a Swiss “preventoria” as guests of the Canadian Junior Red Cross.

They evidently had a great time there. As the Evening Times reported when they arrived at Central Station: “Complexions as well as voices told of sunshine and mountains and ‘great food’ ... they were all quick to show their new Swiss jackets and heavy climbing gear ‘with spikes on the bottom’.” One boy spoke of a boat-trip across the Italian border, where they had met some German boys.

“Many mothers got a surprise,” the report added, “when their children told them frankly that they weren’t glad to be home.”

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