Fazakerley Hospital

[Kev]

A LOTTERY-funded project charting the history of Liverpool’s Fazakerley hospital has been unveiled.

Artwork, photographs and theatre are being used to showcase the history of Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The permanent exhibition is funded by the Lottery’s Local Heritage Initiative.

Five artists and a playwright were each commissioned to create a piece of art which represents their take on an historical aspect of the hospital.

Laurence Payot, Norma Heron, Mark Mennell, Jemma Egan and the artist known only as Vik have spent the past few months working on individual projects.

Arts co-ordinator Paula O’Malley said: ““This is something that everyone who has ever been to the hospital will no doubt be interested in.

Each of the art pieces will be placed around the hospital site.

Actress and writer Emma Vaudrey has penned a short drama based on the history of the hospital, which children from St Benedict’s, in Netherton, will act out during the evening on December 10.

And a temporary photographic exhibition is also on show at the Walton site featuring never-before-seen images of the hospital.

IC Liverpool

[Partsky]

Its good that the history of the hospital is being recorded. I grew up near to it after being moved from Wavertree with my Dad, who had been hurt in the War. He had TB and the area around the hospital was then called a "Clean air area" not much housing and loaks of fields on the kirkby side. People actually got moved to the area to access the hospital which was then regarded as a sanitorium. At the time the hospital had its own farm and it was like Fort Knox. My Mates Mum had TB and she could only visit once a month to see her Mum. She was in hospital for years as people were then. She was in the "Woodlands" block which was set back in the green area of the hospital in pavillion type bungalow accomodation. The patients were made to sit on the verandah wrapped up in blankets to take the air. That was in the 50s and 60s. It was the end of the TB and polio era but people still lived in fear of both those. Does anyone remember the lodges set around the hospital where you could not get in unless the stafff let you. My friends Mum spent much of her life there from her early twenties, dying in her early forties as an indirect result of the Tb. most of the pavillions are still there but used mainly for storage etc although I gather some are wards still.