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Journey to Stannington
Taking children from such a large geographic area it was likely that some of the children would have had quite a long journey to get there. Emergency cases would most likely have arrived by ambulance and the sanatorium also had motor cars at its disposal for the transfer of patients to other hospitals, which had been donated by George Burton Hunter, of the Swan Hunter Shipbuilding Co.
Accounts from participants in the oral history project describe the journey and subsequent arrival to Stannington. Tom Ridley was 5 years old when he made the journey to Stannington in 1934:
"By tram car from Throckley to the Central Station in Newcastle and we were picked up there, a whole crowd of us, by a huge green, I suppose it was an ambulance of sorts but it was all seats inside. And if you'd seen some of the kids who got on, some of them had shoes on with their toes sticking out, no socks, clothes in rags and that. I mean I wasn't dressed like that, my mother made sure I was properly dressed but it was terrible to see some of the kids who got on there."
"I can remember arriving, it was through a gateway and immediately in front of the entrance was this ward and apparently it was for new admissions and we were all put into there, boys into one part and girls into the other part and we were there for two or three days, I suppose it was for assessment."
Another former patient, Diana Chapman, was 9 years old when she went to Stannington in 1928:
"I had to get a little bus from Newcastle, there was a few of us there. And I got to Stannington and the very first thing they did, I was crying, was put us in the bath. They asked what was wrong, and I said 'I only had a bath last night!'"
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