1980s school ailments

[Lorelielee]

Sorry for boring title. For context I'm 48 and I live in a city in the north of England. Just thinking...from about this time of year does anyone my kind of age remember most kids battling chapped lips, red nostrils and a permanent line of snot that could get sore from nose to mouth. Made it worse from licking your lips. My grandma used to slaver me in vaseline.

Loads of kids had it. It doesn't happen anymore. Does anyone know why?

Don't know about the 80s, but in the 60s it was ringworm, impetigo, measles. mumps, whooping cough etc. There were older kids from the 50s suffering the after effects of polio.

Central heating?

I don't think it was most kids as I have a very particular memory of one boy at school being like this and he stood out as a result. He also had black teeth from drinking ribena as a toddler. Poor kid.

Plenty of kids still have that 🤷
My daughter had a permanent sore mouth and chin from licking it when she was about 5 (just over a decade ago).

Lip balm (in tubes like lipstick) is more common to give to small children to use these days.
They keep it in their pocket at school.

No, not really and I'm older than you. However, I grew up in the soft south, so maybe it wasn't ever cold enough for chapped lips and snot. Asthma was a big thing at my school in the 80s. I think inhalers were fairly new and every pupil that had one was like a minor celebrity!

No! I grew up in a deprived area in the North Midlands but strangely we all managed to blow our noses perfectly well. Never saw a cold sore either as a child ….in fact t it was only after I started work I met someone with one.

Oh god, that was me! One kid even nicknamed me nottynose. My mum always put germoline on my lips, as if that helped in any way. Neither of my kids appear to have the same affliction, although ds2 basically had rivers of snot constantly until the first lockdown when he was nearly 2. No idea if it was lockdown or maturity which helped him.

No, I don’t remember this. I do remember that all ailments could be remedied with a wet paper towel.

The chapped lips phenomenon might have been down to dehydration as much as temperature, kids drink so much more water nowadays than they used to.
Also better recognition of allergies and access to antihistamines will reduce the snottiness from hayfever or low-level allergen exposure.
Re. Kids being cold, in the eighties it was generally expected that kids walked or cycled everywhere, nowadays they’re mostly travelling in air conditioned cars so won’t get so cold.

I don't remember that specifically - I do remember us all getting Scarlet Fever though and I don't think any of my DCs/their peers had it.

I had fairly uncontrolled asthma. My dad didn’t like me using my inhaler as ‘it would make me weak’

Chapped lips, red nostrils and a permanent line of snot that could get sore from nose to mouth. Made it worse from licking your lips

It certainly does still happen. My DC are primary school age and both get this in winter! They hate lip balm/Vaseline which doesn't help. It's not really an 'ailment' though? I assumed this thread was going to be about Mumps or German measles or something like that.

Yes! And the tampon shaped vicks inhaler for nostrils that also went in a pocket. Made it run more, and probably menthol-ed up the upper lip in the process to irritate it!

I remember writing a revenge piece in my newsbook in primary school about being swaddled in a pink bonnet with earflaps when being sent that day with earache anyway!

I remember my nose was always running when I was a little kid. I remember the cuffs of my school blazer being stiff with dried snot. I don't know why I had that, but I am pleased to report that it no longer happens to me.

Yes I remember that OP and went to school in the 90s.

Probably doesn’t happen any more because kids are more hydrated from carrying around water bottles, and parents actually applying things like Carmex

We also seemed to have more nits and teens with acne, you don’t see them as much now

I'm sure we had more children with glasses, back in the 80s. There were 5 in my school (20 pupils on roll).

I haven't had chillblains in years.

Do you remember the nit nurse and the hearing lady? Another time I remember we kids all had to line up and take it in turns to show a nurse our extended hands. it was never explained why.

DH went to boarding school and said they put all the bed wetters in one room and he can still smell the ammonia 🤢 poor kids

Yes I remember a lot of kids with NHS glasses, pink or blue. Many had a patch over one lens to train a 'lazy eye'. This was in the 60s.

I was the kid with the NHS glasses and the pink plaster patch.

I think that is the reason I buy beautiful and very expensive glasses nowadays.

In our school it was girls that had pink or blue , and boys had brown (like Roland in Grange Hill. I begged mum to let me have pink but she said I looked awful in them, I was too pale, so she insisted on the brown.
One very infamous year I was allowed the blue. I look at the photos and she was right, only the brown suited me!

My daughter does get this as soon as the weather turns cold. She's 7!

She has otherwise perfect skin, no eczema or anything but as soon as it's cold, she gets red chapped skin from below her eyes to her chin. She gets slathered in moisturizer twice daily which stings, and then I slather her in vaseline as well.

No idea why it happens, but yes, much less rare than when I was a kid.

My youngest had the chapped lips and general redness around the mouth made worse by licking in the winter when he was at primary school. He just would not stop licking it! He still gets Vaseline sticks and lip balm in every Christmas stocking now he's in sixth form!

Back in the 60s I always had chapped lips as a child, as well as chapped hands and knees. Nobody had central heating then and the toilets at primary school only had cold water. We always wore skirts for school and did not have tights. The boys only had shorts.
My DC were sometimes snotty, but never had chapped skin. I thought that was because of more suitable clothes and warmer houses.