Me, Snotty Sam & the Whiffer Gang

Apparently, I contracted Pneumonia at the age of three.
At least, I was told later told this caused me to be susceptible to ‘chest problems’.

I do remember Asthma and Bronchitis attacks starting as a toddler and the anguish of my parents when they were unable to find me a ‘cure’.

But these attacks would at least get me time off school plus maybe something to make me feel better.
Sometimes it was the latest ‘quack’ cough medicine which I accepted as part of the deal.

Often, I was given a copy of the ‘Beano’ and/or a bottle of Lucozade, both of which I loved.

In the fifties the doctors were trying out lots of treatments and my parents seemed determined to get me all that were available.

When I had a really bad attack I was taken to the local ‘Children’s Hospital’ and put in an oxygen tent. This usually gave me quick relief but the Docs still kept me in hospital for at least a week.

On a couple of occasions I was kept in for four weeks. At 9 years old it seemed like forever. Each visit started out as a bit of an adventure but after two or three days I became bored and homesick. My parents did visit as often as they could. This wasn’t very often.
The hospital was a costly bus ride away from home. It was always in the same Children’s Hospital and it had a ward which was dedicated to kids with chest problems.

The others mostly seemed in a worse state than me.
There was this one kid, he was ten or eleven, put in a bed near to me. I was told he was ‘very poorly’ and that I wasn't to disturb him.

But Sam, he told me his name straight away, seemed anxious to be friendly. I was one of those allowed out of bed during the day,and he called me over.

Sam was propped up in bed.
Even though he was wearing thick wyncyette pyjammas, I could tell he was even skinnier than I was. I thought, that if I gripped his wrist, I would be able to touch my fingers to my thumb.

His voice had a very nasal sound. Like as if he had a permanent head cold. There was also a gurgling cough which racked him every few minutes.
When this happened he often had to spit out the results into a bowl placed by his bed. I found this repugnant but fascinating.

When he could, Sam talked fast. He needed to get as many words out as he could between each bout of coughing.

In spite of all this, Sam always seemed to have a big grin on his pallid little face. He had a doll-like, curly mop of blonde hair.

Sam knew lots of ‘dirty’ rhymes, jokes and stories and I chatted with him as often as possible.
I soon considered him to be my best mate. Some of the other kids on the ward joined in and we formed a sort of gang.

Sam had all the best ideas and kind of led us from his bed.
We got up to all manner of tricks that annoyed and frustrated the nursing staff.
Mostly, they involved harmless mischief in places on the open ward.

Occasionally, we got into the stock room where clean laundry was kept. And we did make several attempts to explore the sluice.
This was a ‘no go’ area situated at one end of the ward.
Interesting noises came from within. We were told they were from dangerous water and steam machines, used to sterilize the bed pans, bottles and other medical equipment.

At least twice a day a nurse would collect and carry a pile of used dishes and other stuff into the sluice. Shortly afterwards, we would hear the intriguing hissing and whooshing noises.

We begged each of the nurses to let us in. Just to watch. They shook their heads and muttered about ‘out of bounds’ to patients.

One day a new student nurse was ordered to deal with an extra large accumulation of items. We watched as she had to make three trips to collect and carry it all into the sluice.
On the last trip she failed to close the door.

Sam called us over to his bed and dared us to go and peek in. Eventually we did and when the nurse turned and saw us, I expected us to be ‘shooed’ away. But she just gave us a rueful smile and carried on.

I ventured a ‘Hello’ and she nodded and smiled at us again. Emboldened, I asked, ‘Can we come in and help?’

‘I’m not sure about that’ the nurse replied.
But she glanced at the ‘great pile’ again and I could tell she was tempted.

‘Oh please let us! You can tell us what to do and we promise we’ll be careful’

I hoped that being new she would not know any different and eventually she gave in and nodded.

We all trouped in. I think at first, we were some help.
We took it in turns as instructed, to empty the pans and bowls and place them in the correct cleaning machine.

Then I noticed that some of the stainless steel kidney dishes contained ‘used’ hypodermic syringes.
There was little disposable equipment in hospitals then so the syringes were also made of stainless steel and brass. They were apparently there to be ‘sluiced’ and re-used.

Whilst the nurse was distracted by another kid being silly, I examined a syringe wondering how it could be cleaned on the inside.
Of course I decided, you just needed to suck some warm water into the syringe and then squirt it out again.

Our nurse had still not noticed what I was up to, so I took a bowl with some water in it and half filled the syringe.
There were some bars of yellow soap and I thought it would be a good idea to try to ‘inject’ the water into one of them.
This didn’t work very well and some soap stayed in the needle.
To wash it out, I squirted the rest of the syringe contents into the sink.

I should have stopped there but it then occurred to me that the syringe would make a great water pistol. I’d never been allowed a water pistol at home.
I couldn’t resist refilling the syringe and squirting it into the air in the general direction of the other kids.

With screams and shrieks they retaliated. A ‘water fight’ erupted, which the unfortunate nurse could do nothing to stop.

The mayhem attracted the attention of the Staff Nurse and she marched into the sluice shouting orders.

We were thoroughly chastised and sent back to our beds. I could still hear Sam chuckling and coughing.

Although Sam had instigated the episode he received none of the blame.
We didn’t ‘tell on’ him of course but I think it was the start of a resentment that developed in the gang.
Some of the older gang members began rubbishing his jokes and mocking his nasal speech.
I tried to defend him and when the nick-name of ‘Snotty Sam’ was coined, I refused to join in the taunting. I thought it was cruel.

His condition worsened and the periods of ‘decongesting’ treatment were longer and more frequent.

About that time the doctors decided on penicillin injections. They seemed to be trying anything to treat chest conditions.
Both me and Sam were given daily injections.

The drug came in a miniature, jam jar-shaped glass bottle. Each one had a rubber stopper. This being pierced by the needle to allow the contents to be drawn into the syringe.

After the nurse had given the injection the empty bottles were always left on the top of our lockers.
I was fascinated to find that I could take out and replace the stopper.

When the Staff nurse came by I asked her if we would be allowed to ‘collect’ the bottles and take them home.
To my surprise, she said that we could, provided we cleaned them out and put them away until we left the hospital.
We did this every day of the treatment, storing them in our locker draws.
I don’t think I had any clear idea of how we could use the bottles. They just seemed so interesting.

It was Sam, as usual that had the good idea.
As we reviewed our collection one day, he said that they were just the right size to make stink bombs.
My imagination was fired. The big problem though was where and how would we get a suitably smelly substance to put in the bottles?

Again Sam came up with an answer. He told me that there was a store of pills and potions from previous treatments kept at his home.
And yes! My Mum had a similar collection in her pantry.
We agreed a plan that we would that we could carry out when we both got out of hospital.

One morning Sam’s bed was empty. I was told that he had been moved to ‘intensive care’.
After three days, during which I often asked after him, I was told gently by Matron that Sam had died.
I remember that I suddenly felt very alone.

* * * * * *

I’m not sure whether it was the penicillin, the new inhalers that had been developed or just that I grew out of chronic Asthma attacks. My health improved significantly and I was allowed home for good.

The hospital had been like a second home to me and I found it a bit strange leaving it behind. On the other hand, I now wanted to get back to school, play football and generally become part of things.
I couldn’t forget Sam though. It may sound daft but it was as though he came out of hospital with me. In my head.

We started back to school at the Secondary Modern school only three streets away from home.
Like a lot of other new kids in their first term, we were anxious to fit in and avoid being bullied.

After checking the playground hierarchy over the first week, Sam reminded me about our plan.
Maybe it could help get us accepted and give us some protection from the bullies.

We made it through to the half-term holidays.
On the last day, Mum asked me to help her clear-out the pantry.
What she wanted to do was to sort out the bottles and packets containing all the Asthma ‘cures’ that had accumulated over years.

After reviewing their usefulness one last time, Mum wanted to throw them down the kitchen sink or in the dustbin. But rather than that we persuaded her to let us experiment with them as I kind of ‘Chemistry set’.

They were mostly liquorice and menthol based liquids but also included things like sulphur tablets (acne treatment) and antiseptic throat lozenges.

We played around decanting them into empty jam jars, sniffing them and mixing one with another. The results were sometimes fizzy and nearly all smelly.
Sam’s next idea was to mix all the liquids and solids together. This mixture was very smelly indeed. We poured it all into a large jar, which could be sealed with its cap. I realize that no responsible mother nowadays would allow a child to play with medicines. I guess Mum just wanted to keep me well and happy. And after all, I had ingested all these ‘cures’ in the past.
What harm could be done just to smell them?
She did insist however, that if I kept the jar, it was removed to the shed at the bottom of the garden.

Our collection of little penicillin bottles from hospital, was stashed in a cardboard box under our bed.
The next day, the last of the holidays, Mum was occupied with washing and cleaning. We retrieved the box and smuggled it down to the shed.
We didn't tell Mum about our plans for our smelly mixture and she’d probably already forgotten about our experiments.

Amongst the kitchen equipment in pantry we had found a small earthenware funnel. What my Mum used this for I don’t know, but it was small enough to fit into our bottles and we ‘borrowed’ it anyway.

In the shed, with the door bolted on the inside, we set about filling each one of our bottles from the big glass jar. It wasn’t easy.
We had to hold the funnel in place with our left hand whilst cradling the jar and contents under our right arm.
There was considerable spillage and the whole process, the shed and us, soon stank to high heaven. We found this very satisfying.

Eventually we had filled all our bottles.
We kept six of these and returned the rest to the cardboard box.

From my younger sister’s ‘secret’ draw in her bedroom, we had also borrowed a small gift-box. It was just large enough to hold six bottles of stink mixture with room for cotton-wool padding between.
We placed the box carefully at the bottom of our bag which was ready for school the next day.

There was always increased bullying activity at the start of a term and I tried to keep a low profile.
On this first day back however we selected, by reputation, a boy from each year and actually tried to get their attention during the morning break.
We approached them individually, indicating that we considered them to be the ‘hardest’ boy in their year.
Then we showed them the stink bombs that Sam had invented.
The special ‘deal’ was a free sample of one bottle for them to try out. After that, further supplies could be purchased for a shilling each with sixpence deposit on the bottle. They all accepted with enthusiasm.

During the following lesson period, one customer poured the contents of a ‘bomb’ into another kid’s ink well.
The classroom was cramped and with all the windows closed an awful smell soon filled the room.

With no apparent culprit, the teacher was unsure what to do.
Even opening the windows did little to dispel the odour and certainly didn’t stop the theatrical gasping for breath, holding of noses and shouts of ‘Phwoor! What a pong!’

In the end, the teacher had to evacuate the class to the playground. The Head and the Caretaker were called and a fruitless (for the adults) investigation took place. Eventually, the offending ink well was located and the Caretaker disposed of the contents like he was diffusing an UXB.
It was impossible for the Head to identify the perpetrator so he settled for admonishing the whole class. There would be, he said, dire consequences of a repetition of the ‘stink bombing’.

In fact, there were no further incidents, within the school, that day. Pupils and teachers leaving school however, remarked to each other about the strange and unpleasant smell which seemed to come from a small brown ‘puddle’ by the school gates.

As soon as we arrived at school the next day, we were mobbed by customers. The replenished box of bottles sold out in minutes.

No more bombs were used in classrooms that day. But during the morning and lunchtime breaks there developed a kind of ‘stinking ritual’.
A group would form around the owner of a stink bottle who selected a victim. The gang would then find and chase the kid shouting his name and ‘Whiffer! Whiffer!’

When captured, the ‘unfortunate’ had his arms held. Then the ‘Whiffer’ bottle was held under his nose until he was forced to breath in the fumes.
Although very unpleasant the smell was probably not otherwise harmful. But the humiliation of being ‘whiffered’ was such that it reduced most victims to tears.

Staff on playground duty seemed unaware of this activity. I guess they thought it was another new but harmless game the kids had invented.
I doubt such bullying would go unaddressed nowadays. That week at my school however, no kid was safe from the ‘Whiffer’
gangs.

The incident that led to the end of our enterprise happened in the school hall, during assembly.
We’d no sooner finished the first hymn than kids began to sniff the air, grimace and giggle.
No less than four stink bottles had been emptied out at different places in the hall.
The contents had begun to soak into the parquet flooring.

Needless to say, the Head was livid. Assembly was halted and groups of kids that were near to the damp stinky patches were marched off to the Head’s office.
The resulting body searches and inquisition did uncover the empty bottles. But it is a fact that not one of the, convicted and duly caned boys, ‘fingered’ us as the suppliers of the bombs.

Me and Sam had made what seemed to us like a lot of money. And we had become sort of famous to the boys of the upper school.

We were ourselves, finally ‘whiffered’ by a gang that seemed to us to include the whole school.
We protested but really felt quite proud.

It didn’t take long before the next craze come along and Whiffers were forgotten. I made some new friends and before I left that school, Sam left my head and moved on. He often pops back though.