Bibliography - Harry Gaston
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Out of the Shadows, A History of Newhaven Downs 1836-1996 , by Harry Gaston, published 1997 (South Downs Health NHS Trust) accessible at: The Keep [HB/3/172/1] & West Sussex Libraries

Brighton's County Hospital, 1828-2007, by Harry Gaston, published 11 June 2008 (289 pp., Newhaven: Southern Editorial Services, ISBN-10: 0955846706 & ISBN-13: 9780955846700) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/502162] & West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries

Brighton's County Hospital describes the development of the hospital, its patients and the people who worked in it from its early years until the present day. Some of the high (and low) points along the way include the bravery of staff during the fire on New Year's Day in 1872 that threatened to destroy the hospital, the rivalry between physicians and surgeons revealed at the Sussex Assizes in 1908, the financial crisis of 1922 that almost closed 100 beds, the dangerous operation to remove a live shell from a sailor's thigh during the Second World War and the way staff dealt with the aftermath of the IRA bombing of Brighton's Grand Hotel in 1984. Brighton's County Hospital contains more than 160 photographs. The Foreword is provided by Baroness Cumberlege, a former chairman of Brighton Health Authority and former junior health minister.

The Alex Story: A Portrait of Brighton's Children's Hospital, by Harry Gaston, published 27 February 2009 (128 pp, Newhaven: Southern Editorial Services, ISBN-10: 0955846714 & ISBN-13: 9780955846717) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/502161][Lib/507945] & British Library & East Sussex Libraries

In August 1868, one of England s earliest children s hospitals opened in two or three rooms in a property Western Road in Brighton. From this modest beginning emerged what was arguably to become the town s best-loved hospital, the royal Alexandra hospital for Sick Children. Certainly the news that the building it eventually occupied in Dyke Road was to be replaced with a brand new building on the Royal Sussex County Hospital site was not greeted with universal approval. Indeed, a campaign was launched to convert doubting parents and some hospital staff of the necessity for change. Using pictures and material from hospital archives and a range of other sources including former patients and members of staff, this book charts the development of the Alex as it was affectionately known, from its humble beginnings to become one of the country s leading children s hospitals and its eventual closure in 2007.

A Lingering Fear: East Sussex Hospitals and the Workhouse Legacy, by Harry Gaston, published 17 November 2009 (247 pp., Newhaven: Southern Editorial Services, ISBN-10: 0955846722 & ISBN-13: 9780955846724) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/502160] & West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries

They are not taking me to the workhouse are they? That was the fear of many elderly people who were being admitted to hospital through much of the twentieth century. A Lingering Fear shows what life was like in the 1930s and 40s in eight Sussex institutions Stone House at Battle, Hastings, Eastbourne, Brighton, Shoreham, Newhaven, Chailey and Cuckfield. These were the years when inmates daily lives were frequently governed by former workhouse masters and matrons, when tramps queued at the gates for admission, when many of the onerous tasks for inmates from workhouse days continued, and misdemeanours could lead to seven days hard labour in prison. Much of this changed after 1948 when seven of these institutions became NHS hospitals in East Sussex Battle, St Helen s at Hastings, St Mary s in Eastbourne, Brighton General, Newhaven Downs, Pouchlands and Cuckfield. But the care of their older patients continued to be affected by their workhouse origins and it was not until 2008 that the final patient was discharged from the last remaining hospital. The fear of the workhouse is now a thing of the past. But A Lingering Fear helps to explain why even today older people are sometimes neglected and suffer from a lack of care and respect in Britain s hospitals.

Brighton Born, Sussex Bred: The Story of Brighton's Maternity Hospitals 1830-2007 , by Harry Gaston, published 20 September 2011 (156 pp., Newhaven: Southern Editorial Services, ISBN-10: 0955846730 & ISBN-13: 9780955846731) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/502167] & East Sussex Libraries

A hundred years ago a dozen women died in childbirth every day. Hospitals were especially dangerous places, so many women succumbing to childbed fever (later called puerperal sepsis) usually transmitted by a midwife or obstetrician. No wonder that the original Sussex Maternity Hospital did not actually admit women, preferring to send midwives to deliver them in their own homes. Today, its successor hospital, the Royal Sussex County, deals with the vast majority of confinement in the city. Brighton Born, Sussex Bred tells how this change took place. Tracing the history of the maternity wards on three Brighton hospitals it shows how hospitals have become the preferred choice for many women, while at the same time providing the services of midwives to women who choose a home birth. The change from the days of Dickens Sarah Gamp and the old workhouses is to be expected. But what will surprise many readers are the changes that have taken place in living memory so vividly illustrated by the reminiscences of thirty local midwives and mothers from the 1950s and 60s that are included in the book.

Lost Hospitals of Brighton and Hove, by Harry Gaston, published 4 October 2013 (xiv + 191 pp., Newhaven: Southern Editorial Services, ISBN-10: 0955846749 & ISBN-13: 9780955846748) accessible at: British Library & West Sussex Libraries

When Britain celebrated the birth of the National Health Service in 1948, there were eleven hospitals in Brighton and Hove. Today only four of them remain. What happened to the seven missing hospitals? Should we mourn their loss? Lost Hospitals of Brighton and Hove examines the part those hospitals played in providing health care to local people during the fifty years before the last of them closed. Thanks to the author s research and the memories of many people who worked in or were treated in them, it s possible to build up a picture of the seven Hospitals Bevendean, Foredown, Hove General, Lady Chichester, New Sussex Hospital for Women, Sussex Maternity and the Sussex Throat and Ear. All seven of these hospitals enjoyed good times. Some had occasional difficult days marked by media and parliamentary criticism. In some the physical conditions were far from satisfactory, the buildings old and decaying. But in all of them the vast majority of staff worked well and compassionately, and most were well-loved by the patients. Little now remains of these hospitals. Many of the buildings have been demolished. Some now house flats and apartments; a couple serve other health purposes although none, like some of those in London, are now the sites of supermarkets or even prisons. Lost Hospitals of Brighton and Hove tells the stories of these seven hospitals, the patients and the staff who worked in them stories that cry out to be told before memories fade and they are lost for ever.