The Bug Woman

[Penny Tray]

In the 50s and 60s, Eglinton and Winton Schools in Ardrossan had regular visits from "the bug woman", a sort of community nurse who arrived, certainly to the pupils, unannounced, and checked our heads for bugs.

News of her arrival spread like wildfire and everyone developed immediate itches.

Did Saltcoats and Stevenston pupils undergo the same trauma and if so does anyone know if we shared the same nurse, a Mrs. Tannock, or did each town have its own nurse for this purpose?

[morag]

We had yearly checks for head lice at st. John's, also a dental lab.. I think the head lice lady spread more then she cured, kids with 'treated' hair being somewhat unpopular, greetin' kids coming out of the dental van.

[Penny Tray]

Morag,

The dental visit was an entirely different experience. At Eglinton School we were not examined in the van but in the central tower above the main entrance from which you could look down the entire length of Glasgow Street. The advantage over the 'bug' scenario was that the dental nurse was to die for. She was a blonde model and some of the older boys in the school (probably oor Hughie amongst them) had a magazine in which she featured. Say no more. She did more for dental care in North Ayrshire than any Government initiative. I still have all my own teeth .

Flicking back to 'the bug woman' however, she traumatised me. When we were about 7 or 8 a girl went in one day with a full head of hair and came out cropped. No consultation with parents, no counselling, no nothing, straight back into the class and then the school photograph within days. Scary. I still don't know how it affected the girl (any one of us could have been caught out) but her ordeal has never left me. It wasn't right and couldn't possibly happen today.

The said central tower:-

http://www.threetowners.com/images/Eglinton.JPG

[gnyaff]

I remeber the bug people coming to Kyleshill School in the fifties. Though I don'r remeber it as an annual event. Two or three classes were lined up in the main hall and we were examined in front of everyone. Anyone found to have lice had some sort of oil rubbed into their hair down to the scalp. There were only one or two got the treatment and they were girls, as in those days the haircut for boys was very short back and sides. (not much of a breeding ground for bugs in those days)

Wee Boney

[Lynda]

The buggy woman we had at st mary's in the 60's was mrs dowds.She was a lovely woman then years later I moved across the road from her in saltcoats.Sadly she died in january aged 90.