|
|
|
|
Among the Deep Sea Fishers - the Glasgow-Grenfell Link. Bill Hutton*
He was always at pains to make it clear that his decision to devote his life to service in Labrador was neither the result of "religious excitement, nor of the urge of personal sacrifice." In his own words, "I went because I wanted to."
I was employed as a Travelling Dentist on the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland which meant that from the base at St Anthony, I could find myself at any one of a dozen or so outpost nursing stations, some only accessible by plane in winter or boat in summer. Roads were mainly forestry roads belatedly adapted to civilian use; wintertime transport was by dog team or increasingly during the sixties, ski-doo. My working life involved staying for varying lengths of time at a nursing station, setting up a "surgery" in whatever part of the building the nurse in charge could spare, and working until the demand for treatment abated. Treatment was quite basic - relief of pain by extraction, and the provision of dentures whenever possible. In the main hospitals - I worked in Harrington Harbour and St Anthony - it was possible to do restorative and preventative work, and I even managed some simple orthodontics. As road commucications improved more communities could gain regular access to the dentist and the service developed greatly under successors such as the late Jim Messer. Reports from the coast now suggest that the local population expect to have access to the same kind of dental services as we do in this country. This represents a huge step forward from my day and a real achievement by the IGA and its dental staff, many of whom were Glasgow graduates like myself. From Tom Kennedy in 1952-53, an unbroken flow exists through to Jim Messer, who in 1985 was Chief of Dental Services with eleven dentists reporting to him. Records and information are sketchy and this might be the time to try to collect whatever information there is so that the definitive story of the Glasgow-Grenfell link may be told.
I still have fond memories of the peopple I worked with. I was one of three dentists on the Coast, along with David Mason from Glasgow and Ruth Griffiths (Welsh) a Durham graduate. We either travelled round the nursing stations with all equipment, or were based in the permanent fully equipped surgery in St Anthony hospital. The doctors were from Canada and the U.K., and there were some U.S. trained doctors who came through the Mennonite Central Committee. The M.C.C. volunteers, who included nurses and teachers, were working for their church and could be sent anywhere. The most colourful was Dale, the R.T. (radio-telephone) operator who contacted each Nursing station 3 times every day, (the 'sched'), discussing weather, patients, doctors whereabouts, likely aeroplane movements, orders for hospital supplies and general gossip on a wavelength which every radio on the coast was tuned to - better than a daily paper! The nurses assistants - the "aides and maids" were recruited from the local communities, and many of these girls went on to do nursing training away from the coast, sometimes returning but more often not. Most of the technical staff were local men, and when I was based in the hospital I helped to train a dental mechanic - when travelling, I did all my own set-ups and finishes. The nursing station nurses were usually British trained nurses at the top of their profession who had tired of administration work and had taken the opportunity to return to hands-on nursing. The nursing station provided the primary care on the coast, and the nurses were hightly skilled, motivated and prepared to put in what today would be called a 24/7 shift. They were wonderful characters and it was a privilege to meet them and work alongside them. The patients had grown up in the fishing outports and had little experience of what the outside world was like. Fishing was the local industry and fishermen and their families are used to facing hardship daily. People worked with and for each other, and were happy to welcome outsiders who were prepared to share their lifestyle and who had come to help. Many settlements were so isolated that they had their own exclusive surname, and older generations were addressed as Uncle and Aunt, recognition of the intermarriage inevitable with isolation. Doctor Grenfell was still fondly remembered (I worked on the Coast more than twenty years after his death) and the older people revered his name. Every family had their own story about "the Doctor", and it was recognised that if he had not come to the coast when he did, Newfoundland and Labrador would have lagged behind, and that Confederation with Canada (1949) could not have taken place. For many people, he could not be replaced, as in the case of an elederly lady who came to a doctor's clinic at Flowers Cove. When possible, the doctors from St Anthony would visit the Nursing Stations and hold clinics - very busy occasions. The lady remained seated throughout the session, and when asked by a member of staff if they could help, announced that she had come to see Dr Grenfell. When told that this was not possible since he had died 20 odd years ago, she gathered up her possessions and left, remarking "Nobody told me". Only Dr Grenfell would do. The Grenfell Alumni will have their own personal memories. The time has perhaps come for those memories to be shared, and for the story of the Glasgow-Grenfell link to be preserved. If anyone who reads this article has a tale to tell of the life and work on the Costs, please contact either the author or the editor of the Newsletter. The History of Dentistry Research Group would be delighted to hear from any Grenfell alumnus, or to welcome them at the meetings in Glasgow, which are held two or three times a year.
List of Glasgow dentists who served with the Grenfell Medical
Mission in
* William R. Hutton BDS, Retired General Practitioner, Lanark home | newsletter | news |
Sir
Wilred Grenfell was a boyhood hero of mine, one of a group of late Victorian adventurers
whose exploits illuminated many of the more obscure corners of the globe; certainly those
areas which were in those days coloured red on the map. He lived from 1865 to 1940,
and is described in my biographical encyclopaedia as "A physician and missionary who
founded hospitals, orphanages and other social services in North Newfoundland and
Labrador, as well as fitting out hospital ships for the fishing grounds."
Grenfell was born in the village of Parkgate on the Wirral Penninsula where his
father ran a school. His early life seemed to consist of exploring the foreshore and
sailing in the waters of the Dee Estuary. At the age of 14 he was sent to
Marlborough College, where his principal achievement was to be able to take the main
stairs six at a time. From there he enrolled as a student in the London Hospital, in
Whitechapel, described by Grenfell as "the largest in the British Isles, and in the
midst of the poorest population in England!" There his keen intellect and
powers of observation, allied to his appetite for hard work and his good fortune in having
teachers of the calibre of Sir Frederick Treves, enabled him to pass the exams of the
Royal College of Surgeons of England and the College of Physicians in 1886.
Grenfell's father, originally a schoolmaster, had in later life become a clergyman,
but Sir Wilfred admits that religion played little part in his life until one evening,
returning from a visit to a patient he happened upon an evangelical meeting led by Moody
and Sankey. A long prayer started and Grenfell was about to leave when Moody stood
up and said "Let us sing a hymn while our brother finishes his prayer."
This down-to- earth practicality impressed Grenfell and throughout his life his
religion was essentially praactical, free from pretentiousness or humbug. He once
interrupted a Sunday service he was taking in Labrador when the coastal steamer, a vital
contact with the outside world for these remote communities, was heard outside the
harbour. He signed off his prayer with the words "and you will have to excuse
us Lord, the steamer has arrived."
After
he qualified, he worked in the North Sea on a small vessel fitted out by the Mission to
Deep-Sea Fishermen in an attempt (which eventually proved completely successful) to break
the hold of the infamous grog ships over the inshore fishermen. Conditions were
spartan, and only someone with Grenfell's constitution, determination and compassion could
have coped. A chance remark led him to cross the Atlantic in 1892, arriving in St
Johns in time to witness a fire which destroyed 90% of the houses. He was, however,
headed "down North" to the Labrador Coast and his life's work. "The
coast offered work that simply would not be done unless we did it." He
identified sites for two cottage hospitals, and while they were being built equipped a
small vessel to take medical treatment directly to the fishermen. He persuaded
colleagues to work with him for little more than their keep, and spent winters lecturing
in Canada and the United States and Britain to raise funds to sustain his work and allow
his foundation to expand.
When I was a student at Glasgow
Dental Hospital I was lucky enough to come into contact with the Kennedy family, three of
whom assisted with my dental education - Arthur in the Royal Infirmary, and Tom and Gordon
in the Dental Hospital. Tom Kennedy went to Labrador to work for the International
Grenfell Association in 1952, establishing a link which to my knowledge lasted 35 years.
When I head that it might be possible to go and work in Labrador, I resolved to
apply, and so it was that I crossed from Liverpool to St Johns in August 1961. We
learned of the building of the Berlin Wall from the ship's notice board, and I was
disembarked along with a consignment of jam from Scotts of Carluke. I arrived in the
spectacular harbour of St Anthony, the site of the main mission hospital, at 6.00 a.m. on
a lovely sunny morning, wondering what was ahead of me. An hour or so later, I
arrived in the hospital just as the O.R. staff were assembling - following the American
custom they operated first thing then did their surgeries later. A few introductions
later saw the arrival of the mission superintendent, Dr Gordon Thomas, who greeted me with
the following words: "Hi. We are sending you to Harrington Harbour. Dr
Hodd has had a heart attack." It took me most of my two years with I.G.A. to
catch up with this start, but that was how the mission worked - seat of the pants stuff,
get things done.
Most
people will remember experiences unique to the coast. The climate dictated what was
possible in the way of travel. Winter freeze-up came in November inland, and
December on the coast, and the snows did not disappear completely until May, when there
was still a problem with slob ice. Travelling was best by plane; De Havilland Otters
and Beavers run by Eastern Provincial Airways, with wheel-skis in the winter and floats in
the summer. These bush planes were incredibly reliable - and the pilots a breed of
men apart - and I came across one in service with Loganair on the Glasgow Machrihanish
route as recently as 2003. The Canadian Company which has taken over from DH
provides the water taxi service in the Maldives. It was quite a shock to see a Twin
Otter taxiing over the brilliant blue lagoon towards the pontoon at Eydhufishi, bringing
back memories of a very different sea - and climate - nearly 40 years before, in the
Canadian sub Arctic. When the freeze-up came, travel "in the country"
became not only possible via the broad rivers, but a pleasure in the absence of the
dreaded black fly. Anyone venturing more than half a mile from the sea coast soon
became aware of these monsters, like a midge but 100 times bigger and 100 times worse.
Travel in the interior was either on foot if one mastered the snowshoe , or
"on dogs", in a komatik hauled by a team of eight or twelve dogs. They
were Husky crossbreeds which looked very mean to me! In summer they were typically
chained up in the settlements and fed a fish a day, or marooned on an island with the odd
scrap thrown to them. Yet they seemed to work well enough in winter.
They were being
abandoned in favour of the skidoo, which didn't have to be fed in summer and never
attacked children in the settlements. Travelling "in boat" in the summer
was a treat provided you kept a weather eye open for the frequent Atlantic storms which
could spring up in an instant. Apart from the storms, I remember the foghorn
bleating forlornly over St Anthony, and the violent extremes of weather, 90 degrees F in
May, minus 20 degrees F in winter were quite common. I recall crossing the harbour
in Cartwright on the Labrador Coast in January to dine with friends and attend the cinema
(a rare treat): - when I left the hospital, it was 20 degrees F: when we went to the
cinema, zero (32 degrees below!) and when I recrossed the harbour -20 degrees F - a drop
of 40 degrees in 4 hours - wow!!