'Prodded, poked and measured

SIXTY years ago, when coal-mining and shipbuilding still reigned supreme, the North-East was a very different place. It had some of the worst slum housing in England along with some of the highest levels of child mortality.

To try to find out why so many babies and young children were dying of infections such as TB, diptheria and croup, the then Professor of Child Health in Newcastle, Sir James Spence, organised what became known as The Thousand Families Study. He had the idea of monitoring the health of every single child born in Newcastle - a city where a third of the population lived in housing unfit for human habitation.

Remarkably, over a two month period in early summer 1947 all but three of 1,000 babies born to Tyneside parents were signed up.

To identify the babies enrolled in this internationally renowned project each individual's medical card was marked with a large red circular sticker.

Over the years, the babies, then children, then adults involved in the study became known as "The Red Spot Babies".

This summer the Red Spot generation hit the grand old age of 60 - marked by an ITV Tyne Tees documentary this week.

Feted at a reception at Newcastle's Civic Centre hosted by the Lord Mayor, the 800 or so Red Spot survivors who can still be traced were wined and dined as a token of the city's gratitude.

It was the work of researchers on the Thousand Families Study which directly led to the massive programme of slum clearances in areas such as Byker and Scotswood in the 1960s which replaced cramped, crumbling, over-crowded, unsanitary Victorian tenements, with modern flats and houses with inside toilets, and even gardens.

Intended initially to only last a year, the study continues to provide insights into healthcare.

While some of the Red Spot babies regret the dispersal of those tightly knit communities and the loss of community spirit, medical researchers say it is the improvement in living conditions, together with medical advances such as vaccinations and improved drugs, which are responsible for the dramatic reduction in child deaths through infection.

Dozens of scientific research papers based on the information contained in the study have been published over the years and today's researchers are now looking to use the unique Tyneside 'living archive' to investigate a range of other conditions.

Already the research project director, Dr Mark Pearce from Newcastle University, said there is clear evidence that behaviour during young adulthood is very important to life-long health.

"However, the key finding is that there is a lot you can do to overcome early disadvantage. It is what you do throughout your life that is important to your health, not just part of your life," he added.

Jean Taylor, who grew up in the relatively affluent Tyneside suburb of High Heaton, was one of the Red Spot Babies.

Looking back across more than half a century she can remember that being a Red Spot Baby made a real difference.

"We had regular visits from health visitors and district nurses," she recalls.

"At school you sometimes had to stay behind after assembly. You were prodded, poked and measured. We also had to do various intelligence tests."

She remembers rather enjoying the thrill of being in an exclusive club.

"I accepted it as part of growing up. We knew what was going on, but to others it was a big mystery. Nobody else knew what we were doing. It was like a secret society in a way," she adds.

In those austere, post-war days when industrial Northern England was suffering from poor housing, unemployment and rationing, life was tough and premature death was ever present.

Another Red Spot Baby, Rosemary Johnson, recalls; "I had a sister, Joyce, who was born in 1936. She was five and at school when she developed a sore throat. The doctor told my mum to take her home. Three days later she was dead of diptheria."

She also remembers her uncle losing a young daughter at the age of two.

"I don't know what was wrong with her. Somebody else we knew had twins who died from chicken pox. Children died quite often in those days," she said.

Living conditions were often appalling, particularly in the densely packed terraces in Scotswood and Byker.

Norman Hall, another Red Spot Baby, grew up in an overcrowded and basic tenement building shared by many families.

"There were four families shared one yard and one outside toilet. Nobody would stand for that now," he said.

But for children with better off parents, life was more like it is today.

"My dad was a foreman electrician and we had a garden where we grew vegetables so we never went short of anything, in spite of the rationing. The people next door kept hens and there was quite a lot of bartering," says Jean, who is married and lives in the suburb of Denton Burn.

While these days it seems obvious that insanitary living conditions contributes to higher levels of disease, the early Red Spot Baby researchers thought "feckless" mothers played the most significant role in promoting illness.

Ignoring the peeling wallpaper, squalor, cracked windows and lack of indoor plumbing, the researchers identified three types of 'problem' families where the women of the house got the blame.

This included: the "friendly type" of mother who was usually "incompetent"; the "sullen type" who was furtive and suspicious and allowed most of the income to go on drink and gambling and the "vicious type" who had a violent temper, terrified the children and was a "moral defective."

Years later, researchers re-examined the mass of statistics collected and concluded that desperately bad housing conditions and poverty were the major factors rather than the personal failings of poor people.

Dr Pearce, who hails from Devon originally, is amazed at the generosity of the grown-up Red Spot Babies.

"They are an incredible group of people. Ten years ago, when they reached 50, the 840 or so that we were still in touch with were sent an 86-page detailed questionaire. More than 570 filled them in and returned them. They have the attitude that they are helping others," he adds.

"It would be very difficult to do this sort of study now. I wish this attitude of helping others was more widespread today".

Recently female members of the Red Spot group got involved in a study to establish whether there was a link between exposure to the hormone oestrogen and breast cancer.

Now there is a number of potential research projects lined up which aim to use the Newcastle group to investigate diseases which affect older people, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and dementia.

One recent innovation which Dr Pearce is proud of is the revival of the tradition of sending birthday cards to all the group members along with regular newsletters. After a lapse of many years, every member of the Red Spot group now gets a special card delivered on their birthday to thank them for their continuing support.

* To find out more about the Thousand Families Study visit www.ncl.ac.uk/plerg (look for study under 'research' category).