The Children of Craig-y-nos

Received a request today from a BBC television producer for photos from a book I wrote, with my co-author Dr Carole Reeves, on "The Children of Craig-y-nos".*

They are planning a documentary on hospitals in 20th century Britain.

Well, in our book we reconstructed 40 years of lost Welsh history in a children's TB sanatorium in the Swansea valley through personal accounts and photographs, many taken by the children themselves.

During the research I received over 1,200 photos.

This is one of the earliest taken in 1928, of a children's party inside the sanatorium, a mock Gothic castle, former home of opera diva Madame Adelina Patti.

It got me thinking about this project again and how lucky we were to be able to access so much lost history.

A few years earlier and it would not have been possible because it was dependent on access to the internet and a wide level of computer literacy for the people who contacted me on email were often the children or grandchildren of former patients.

Today if a similar project were to be undertaken it would be much more restricted because so many of the original patients have died and it would depend on the memories of their children and the stories they had been told.

More information :
www.youtube.com/childrenofcraigynos
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qaw1MKe7AKE&feature=watch_response

www.bbc.co.uk/wales/mid/sites/abercraf/pages/annshawphotos.shtml?8

www.bbc.co.uk/wales/mid/sites/abercraf/pages/annshaw.shtml

http://craig-y-nos.blogspot.co.uk/

* "The Children of Craig-y-nos" by Ann Shaw and Carole Reeves, pulished by The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, UCL.