The School Dentist

Many British people of my generation are scared to death of the dentist. Ask any of them why, and they will tell you horrendous tales of visits to the school dentist when they were small children.

Our school dentist was situated in Player School, a short distance from our own school. I think they must have sent someone round to the individual schools to check childrens’ teeth, but I can’t honestly remember that part. I can remember as if it were yesterday the actual visit to the dentist. It’s like something out of a Dickens’ novel.

My older sister recently told me of her experience at the school dentist. Apparently she had to go to have a milk tooth pulled when she was in the Junior School. She tells me they all had to sit on chairs and the dentist walked along, told them to open their mouths and then hoiked out the offending tooth without any anaesthetic. All the kids were screaming and crying. He used the same tool for each child. No suggestion of sterilising or anything. That experience is burned into her brain too. She is absolutely terrified of dentists. She has false teeth now so it’s no longer a problem for her. She never went back to the school dentist, and had to be in total agony before she would even consider a visit to any dentist.

The day I went there were several of us sitting on little infant-school chairs in a corridor, all looking very worried. One of my bottom teeth beside my incisors had decayed. I didn’t have toothache or anything, and it was a first tooth, but they decided it had to come out. I could hear kids crying in another room. When it was my turn I had to go into the room and they told me to sit in a big, black funny looking chair. I asked a woman in a white coat if I could please have gas? She answered with a stern ‘No!’ I was terrified. Next they told me to open my mouth and they put a metal thing in there and started to jack my mouth open. I thought they were never going to stop and the top of my head would fall off. There were no words of comfort or explanation while all of this was happening. Next they pushed a black rubber mask onto my face. After that I don’t remember anything until I was being told to go and rinse my mouth out. I had to do this at a stone trough with an enamel cup on a chain attached to a cold water tap. I think we all used the same cup. It was like a production line in a factory. It’s a wonder we survived, really. I couldn’t get out of that room fast enough.

I never went back to the school dentist either, but I did manage to overcome my fear of dentists as a species. I’m still not easy with it all but I try to look after my teeth as I don’t want a mouth full of plastic. My dentist is a kind man who makes sure I’m not going to feel any pain. I still ‘white knuckle’ it though.

Thank goodness things had changed by the time my own kids visited the school dentist. Clean; hygienic; bright pictures on the wall; young, cheerful dental assistants full of comforting words and a small reward when the visit was over. It was not easy for me to stand beside my kids, with heart racing and sweaty palms, while they were in that chair, but it didn’t seem to bother them, thank goodness. Things have come a looooong way in the last fifty or so years.