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King Edwards Hospital, 1965

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I think that people who were appearing at the old Empire Theatre often came to visit. I've got three signed pictures, One from Tessy O'Shea, Lenny The Lion And one from Harry Corbet And Sooty. I know Billy Smarts Cicus always came to visit evry year when they were in town.

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Hi Suzyq my younger brother was in King Edwards during world cup year 1966, he had perths disease and he had to be strapped to a frame for a year ! . He was only 4 yrs old. I dont remember any nurses or wards but i remember the cooking apple trees near the cafe and i remember getting Dave Berrys autograph once when he came to visit someone there ,i also remember the long ride on the number 2 circular bus (we were living on the flower estate then).I will also never forget his screams when we had to go home .

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I spent many weeks in King Edwards hospital, Dr Herzog and Prof Sharrard were my doctors too. I had polio when i was young and had many operations on my legs.

 

I remember Prof Sharrard asking me on one of my clinic visits what i wanted to do when i grew up and i said i wanted to be a nurse, and he said you can come and work for me lol.

 

Years later when i trained as a pupil nurse, I worked in the theatre as a swab nurse, I got all the bloody swabs thrown at me and i had to wash them in formaldahyde and hang them up and count them at the end of the op to make sure that none were left in the wound.

 

I had the honour to watch him operate. If there was an interesting operation going on in the next theatre, he would take his camera and take pictures, then come back and finish what he was doing. He gave the scrub nurse a hard time i remember if she didnt hand him an instrament so that he could feel it slap into his hand he would just let it slip from his fingers on to the floor and demand another one.

 

I remember seeing him walking down the corridor at the childrens hospital, I was in uniform and only 18 at the time and just started my training and i remember shouting his name, after the words were out of my mouth, i realised what i had done and i thaught "God now i am dead" lol. But he turned round and spoke to me, and when i reminded him who i was he said that he was glad i had started my training and good luck with it. If matron had been around i would have been on the carpet for sure.

 

As a child i remember at King Edwards they would wheel us out in our beds on to the patio so that we could be outside in the sunshine. It was a beautiful hospital back then. Im glad that both doctors lived into old age, they were both brilliant men.

 

It was a lovely surprise to find such fond memories of my father on this site!

 

He was a remarkable man, with an almost unbelievable commitment to his work. I know he had a fearsome reputation among the nursing staff (and indeed his colleagues), but for his patients and anyone who shared his passion for orthopaedics he would go to immense lengths. He would think nothing of spending eight hours on one complex operation. He would also think nothing of ringing up a colleague at 3 am to discuss an idea for a new technique!

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so what kind of hospital was this did it have A&E or was it just a general for minor operations or physio etc & when did it close?

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so what kind of hospital was this did it have A&E or was it just a general for minor operations or physio etc & when did it close?

It was a specialist orthopaedics hospital i dont think it had an A&E , i think it closed in the nineties and i believe it has now been converted into flats.

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It was a lovely surprise to find such fond memories of my father on this site!

 

He was a remarkable man, with an almost unbelievable commitment to his work. I know he had a fearsome reputation among the nursing staff (and indeed his colleagues), but for his patients and anyone who shared his passion for orthopaedics he would go to immense lengths. He would think nothing of spending eight hours on one complex operation. He would also think nothing of ringing up a colleague at 3 am to discuss an idea for a new technique!

 

Hi mike, It's an honour to meet you. You must have been so proud of your dad, he was a great surgeon. Did you follow in his footsteps?

I have three daughters and a son and i would have dearly loved one of my kids to have gone into the medical profession but they all find it far too squeemish lol.

Your dad gave his all to his patients, and would never tolorate anything but the best from anyone.

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I spent 10 days there in 1974 having a cartilage sorted out on my knee. In those days, pre keyhole surgery, I was confined to bed for the duration with a huge wadding dressing on the offending leg.

Whilst not saying I enjoyed being in hospital I can only confer that the atmosphere amongst the long term patients and staff was terrific. Even in my relatively trivial state I too remember being wheeled out onto the patio to take the air in the spring sunshine.

Whenever I hear The 3 Degrees "When Will I See You" I am taken back to those few days it King Ted's.

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Hi mike, It's an honour to meet you. You must have been so proud of your dad, he was a great surgeon. Did you follow in his footsteps?

I have three daughters and a son and i would have dearly loved one of my kids to have gone into the medical profession but they all find it far too squeemish lol.

Your dad gave his all to his patients, and would never tolorate anything but the best from anyone.

 

Thank you! Yes, I am indeed proud of him. He was not only a very talented surgeon but extremely hard-working (it used to be said that he had operated on at least one member of every family in Sheffield) and, as you say, would not put up with anything but the best from anyone, including himself.

 

I started out as a medical student, but found it very difficult to work in a medical school in which my father was such a larger-than-life member of staff, and I felt uncomfortable with the assumption that others made that I was 'trading on the family name'. In the end I changed courses to Biochemistry, got my degree and PhD, and stayed on in academic research. For the past two decades I've been working on the molecular biology of cancer, so I don't think I've dropped the baton - just moved it to the other hand.

 

My dad gave more to his patients than most people realise. Often he would be frustrated by long waiting lists and lack of NHS funding for operations, especially for children who risked permanent deformities and lack of mobility as a result of delay. He found many logistical and financial ways round these problems, including very long working hours (his theatre staff had to be very patient!), and where the cost of an operation might have been a prohibitive factor he would automatically waive his fee. On one occasion a wealthy middle-eastern magnate (grateful for a successful operation on his child) offered him a personal present - essentially a blank cheque. To his surprise, the magnate found himself funding a dozen children's leg-lengthening operations.

 

He was, nevertheless, not an angel all the way through. He didn't suffer fools, and would terrorise students and colleagues if he thought they were not pulling their weight. He considered most hospital bureaucrats to be a species of demon bred to get in his way. He was also a notoriously bad time-keeper, to the extent that he was known as 'the late Professor Sharrard' decades before he died. He appeared to be convinced that he could travel backwards in time, and would cheerfully book a clinic at the Childrens' Hospital ('The Kids', as it was always known) to end at 11 am on a day when he was due to start operating at King Ted's ('Rivelin') at 10 am.

 

Your memory of him taking pictures of operations (and your mention of squeamish children) reminded me of the day he enthusiastically showed me a film of himself doing an operation (an Iliopsoas Transplant). The hour-long movie was in extreme close-up on the working area, and suffered from the startlingly garish reds and greens of early 16 mm colour film. I managed to watch until he started to drill through the ilium. There's only so much gore I could take at the age of eight!

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does anyone have the exact date of it closing as a hospital

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does anyone have the exact date of it closing as a hospital

 

Ive found this site which shows the former King Edwards Hospital and now as converted apartments, but im afraid it doesnt state when it closed as a hospital.

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1151252.

Perhaps mike will know?

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Thank you! Yes, I am indeed proud of him. He was not only a very talented surgeon but extremely hard-working (it used to be said that he had operated on at least one member of every family in Sheffield) and, as you say, would not put up with anything but the best from anyone, including himself.

 

I started out as a medical student, but found it very difficult to work in a medical school in which my father was such a larger-than-life member of staff, and I felt uncomfortable with the assumption that others made that I was 'trading on the family name'. In the end I changed courses to Biochemistry, got my degree and PhD, and stayed on in academic research. For the past two decades I've been working on the molecular biology of cancer, so I don't think I've dropped the baton - just moved it to the other hand.

 

My dad gave more to his patients than most people realise. Often he would be frustrated by long waiting lists and lack of NHS funding for operations, especially for children who risked permanent deformities and lack of mobility as a result of delay. He found many logistical and financial ways round these problems, including very long working hours (his theatre staff had to be very patient!), and where the cost of an operation might have been a prohibitive factor he would automatically waive his fee. On one occasion a wealthy middle-eastern magnate (grateful for a successful operation on his child) offered him a personal present - essentially a blank cheque. To his surprise, the magnate found himself funding a dozen children's leg-lengthening operations.

 

He was, nevertheless, not an angel all the way through. He didn't suffer fools, and would terrorise students and colleagues if he thought they were not pulling their weight. He considered most hospital bureaucrats to be a species of demon bred to get in his way. He was also a notoriously bad time-keeper, to the extent that he was known as 'the late Professor Sharrard' decades before he died. He appeared to be convinced that he could travel backwards in time, and would cheerfully book a clinic at the Childrens' Hospital ('The Kids', as it was always known) to end at 11 am on a day when he was due to start operating at King Ted's ('Rivelin') at 10 am.

 

Your memory of him taking pictures of operations (and your mention of squeamish children) reminded me of the day he enthusiastically showed me a film of himself doing an operation (an Iliopsoas Transplant). The hour-long movie was in extreme close-up on the working area, and suffered from the startlingly garish reds and greens of early 16 mm colour film. I managed to watch until he started to drill through the ilium. There's only so much gore I could take at the age of eight!

 

Hi mike and thanks for replying,

Yes your dad was a formidable man and everyone was in awe of his wonderful gift as a surgeon. I can imagine how difficult it was for you to show your own skills under the shadow of your dad. The work you are doing now is so important and i wish we could find a cure for all cancers.

It made me smile when you wrote about the "blank Check" I bet your dad had great pleasure spending the money lol.

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Hi Suzyq my younger brother was in King Edwards during world cup year 1966, he had perths disease and he had to be strapped to a frame for a year ! . He was only 4 yrs old. I dont remember any nurses or wards but i remember the cooking apple trees near the cafe and i remember getting Dave Berrys autograph once when he came to visit someone there ,i also remember the long ride on the number 2 circular bus (we were living on the flower estate then).I will also never forget his screams when we had to go home .

Hi gracie, I used to love the ride to the hospital especially if it was a hot summers day, we lived on the stradbroke estate then and it was a full days outing.

I remember dreading the end of my parents visiting time too :(

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