The lost children of Craig-y-nos

I never dreamt when I began my blog in November 2006
for the "lost children of Craig-y-nos" that I would be uncovering half a century of repressed traumatic experiences, that I would have grown men and women weeping on the phone, that I would have emails from America, New Zealand and Australia from people wanting to talk about their experiences.

For I had tapped into years of lost Welsh history. Moreover, I was opening up a taboo subject: TB.
The "white death" was spoken about in fearful whispers in the Welsh valleys as if the very mention of it would bring the disease to the house.

Often it would be the children, or even grandchildren of those "lost children" who make the initial contact urged by their older relatives as the family become computer literate.

It became obvious very early on that these "children" were far from lost. They were alive and keen to get their stories out.

For they had spent years - and I was one of them - incarcerated in Craig-y-nos Castle, a remote children's sanatorium, at the top of the Swansea Valley.

We were removed from the outside world and lived in extraordinary bleak conditions under the mistaken belief that "fresh air" was the cure for TB.
In reality this meant living year round, for some of us and again I was one of them, on open balconies where in winter we would have snow on our beds protected only by thin piece of tarpaulin.



In 2009 The Wellcome Trust published the book Children of Craig-y-nos , based on interviews and my blog which I co-authored with medical historian Carole Reeves and it was short listed for a medical award in 2010.

And I even set up own our internet channel on Youtube. Copies of the book are available as a freedownload too.
BBCWales online was very supportive and helped to give publicity to the project.


The key to this project was the internet.
It helped us retrieve 40 years of lost Welsh history and to bring psychological closure for dozens of people still traumatised from those early days in Craig-y-nos Castle.

Yet still the stories come in because one of the first things the "children of Craig-y-nos" do once they get their hands on a computer is Google "Craig-y-nos" and up pops my blog.

The latest is Bill Collins, age 87.

Blog: Children of Craig-y-nos