DUDLEY'S Black Country Living Museum is creating its own 'Call the Midwife' style exhibit and wants to hear from mums who had children in the Black Country in the 1960s.
As part of its £30m capital development project, Forging Ahead, the museum in Tipton Road is recreating Wolverhampton’s Lea Road Infant Welfare Centre.
The recreated building will see the museum’s historic characters taking on roles such as nurse, GP, or new mum to share stories of what life was like in the Black Country in 1960s.
The Infant Welfare Centre will be set in 1961 and will chronicle the founding and development of the NHS from its inception in 1948 up until the formation of the National Childbirth Trust and the launch of the polio and tetanus vaccines.
Infant Welfare Centres provided community services services including ‘mothercraft’, ante-natal clinics, immunisation, welfare foods distribution, and the sale of second-hand baby clothes.
The museum has collected a variety of equipment such as medical screens, paediatric medical equipment and baby weighing scales to create a realistic setting when the building is constructed, but true stories are now needed to help bring the Infant Welfare Centre to life.
Mothers who used the Lea Road centre, or other similar clinics in the Black Country at the time, are invited to share their stories about their experiences, the services used and what it was like to become a mum in the 1960s in the Black Country.
Project workers at the museum would be particularly keen to hear from mothers who had recently arrived in Britain or were part of migrant communities in the Black Country. They also want to hear from people who worked as midwives/health visitors in the Black Country during the 1960s.
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