Kendal Oral History Group aims to compile a picture of earlier times through the memories of some of the area’s older residents. The well-loved and respected D. Sheila Cochrane was born in 1923 and interviewed in July 1992.

WE LIVED on the corner of Maude Street. Dad built the surgery when I was four and my uncle moved down. His surgery had been at the back of his house opposite the Post Office and he moved down as well.

He had this sort of suite of rooms with two consulting rooms, a violet-ray room a dispensary and a little private waiting room in the house.

Prior to that dad had had a consulting room in the house and the waiting room was also in the house.

It was quite amusing because he had had water laid on in his surgery and when that was finished and the water taken out it became our sitting room.

If the policeman or somebody used the outside toilet at night, you would hear this boom coming right under the floor of the sitting room with the air in the old pipes which, if we had visitors, caused a bit of a shock.

It was a much slower existence in those days. In Sandes Avenue you had the gas-lights and the little gas lighter going down with the rod over his shoulder and lighting the lights.

I remember the Palladium Cinema being built where the County Mews is now and the Roxy, which used to be called 'The Kendal Kinema' on the other side.

We used to watch everybody going in. There used to be panes of red glass in the top rooms of our house so people couldn’t really see us.

There were two houses, one at 6pm the other at 8pm.

When dad came to Kendal it was three surgeries every day and two on Sundays. Then we found the people went to the first house of either cinema and then came to the doctor so he cut out the evening one and then he cut out the afternoon one and just kept the morning one.

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