Family Planning Survey

He’s a good husband, he doesn’t bother me much

If you have ever been a patient in a family planning clinic or visited your GP for the Pill, did you ever wonder what it was like in the old days when birth control was difficult to obtain and the methods were neither aesthetic or reliable. The development of family planning in Great Britain is a story of a fight for a contraceptive service, the development of effective methods, the change of attitudes of politicians and churchmen and the acceptance by health professionals, government and the public of family planni ng as a positive force in women’s health care.

This is a chronicle of Birmingham’s involvement in Family Planning, where Birmingham Made A difference.I came into the family planning movement quite by chance. In 1951 I was working as a research assistant to Professor Gilbert Walker in the Faculty of Commerce at Birmingham University, helping to compile the statistics for a report he was writing on Transport in Nigeria. At that time the wives of the three Professors were all involved in Birmingham family planning, Lella Florence was the Chairman; Audrey Court was the Secretary and Mavis Walker the wife of my boss, was the assistant Treasurer. One day he asked me if I would like to be the research assistant under Professor Charles Madge on a joint University/FPA family planning survey. Lella Florence was the moving spirit behind the project as she wanted to write a book about birth control.

It so happened that I had just realised I was pregnant with our second child, but it was agreed that I would work on the pilot survey starting in November 1951. The survey was was designed to find out why patients did not return to the clinic after their initial visit or for their six monthly visit. Professor Madge and I worked out the questions I needed to ask We decided that the interviews should be conducted in an informal manner and no notes should be taken during an interview, First I had to extract every tenth card of the defaulters who were then to be visited and interviewed in their own homes.

By the time I was ready to start the interviews I was about four months pregnant and it showed. Armed with my case cards I drove all round the seedier areas of Birmingham, Aston, Small Heath, Sparkhiull, Sparkbrook, and to the big council estates on the periphery, knocking on doors of the defaulting clients. Then with my tummy well forward I would say, ‘I’m from the Family Planning Association, can I ask you a few questions.’ The response was a look of amazement followed by one of welcome, ‘Come in, sit down, have a cup of tea.’

Very often the pinnied client herself was pregnant, and this created a bond – the flood gates would open and they told me their all: not only why they hadn’t returned to the clinic but all about their sex lives and their problems. One thing which came through loud and clear was that none of these women enjoyed sex at all, because of the fear of getting pregnant. The phrase I was to hear over and over again was, ‘he’s a good husband, he doesn’t bother me much.’ These were pre tape recorder days so I had to rely on my memory and dash back to the car after each interview to write everything down before I went on to the next address.

The reasons the clients failed to return to the clinic were varied – travel difficulties; lack of money; no one to leave their children with while they traveledl into the centre of Birmingham; but above all discomfort and dislike of the methods which they found distasteful. Methods on offer were the sheath, either a thick washable sheath or a packet of disposable sheaths which cost 2/- and the cap – patients paid 5/- for a consultation with the doctor and were fitted with a practice cap, which would be exchanged for a new cap a fortnight later when they would be issued with spermicidal cream..

The results of this Birmingham survey showed the necessity to make clinics services more accessible to the average person and above all to provide an easy, acceptable method. Lella Florence who had met Dr Pincus in the USA, was instrumental in inviting him to Birminghamin 1958 to talk about the new oral contraceptive ‘The Pill’. This resulted in a clinical trial of 500 women in Birmingham in 1960, and subsequent pill availability from clinics and from GP prescriptions throughout the country.

2005 is the 75th Annversary of the Family Planning Association (FPA) when the FPA's parent association, The National Birth Control Council, was formed with 20 clinics (including Birmingham, the 7th in the country) offering a birth control service.This small number of clinics had grown to 1000 by 1974 when the FPA handed over the clinics to the NHS. During those years the FPA had developed a range of services, not only contraception, but subfertility clinics, psycho-sexual clinics, cervical smear tests, a domiciliary service, doctor and nurse training, sex education courses, a range of information leaflets, and training for health, education and social service professional workers.in sexual health and personal relationships During those years,and subsequently, the FPA made an enormous contribution to women's lives and the lives of their families.
As a FPA golden oldie, I have seen it all. I was at the historic FPA meeting in1967 in Harrogate when it was agreed that contraceptive advice could be given to the unmarried..

.....I attended the memorable FPA meeting in Birmingham when Grogory Pincus gave the first talk about 'the Pill' in Great Britain. I witnessed the enormous growth in demand for family planning once the pill and the IUD became widely available. I saw the FPA welded together from numerous autonomous clinics to a large central in 1966 under its Director Caspar Brook. I remember the advent of free family planning in 1972– a Birmingham first again- which was available to Birmingham residents, and the subsequent banner headline in the Birmingham Mail, SEX ON THE RATES. And I was working for the FPA when the clinic services went into the NHS and the FPA Midlands Region, focussing on information, and education on sexual health, was born.

From the mid 70s to 1990 the 11 FPA Regions implemented a National Work Plan of information and education, making contact at grass roots level with every facet of society. FPA National Office set up a free literature and information service for both public and professionals to increase public knowledge, and the Regions distributed this material and experimented with new and more effective ways of communicating with those in need. In Birmingham for instance, a Workplace Project was set up to involve occupational health staff, and several Employment Training schemes with the City of Birmingham which trained outreach workers to work in the community, many of them ethnic, who networked between social agencies and liaised with Health Education Officers.

Eventually in 1990 due to financial difficulties the FPA decided to close the Regions Today the FPA continues to make an important contribution to people’s lives by its information and education service; its continual campaigning to ensure high quality sexual health services and responsible attitudes towards sex.

But let us not forget my fellow golden oldies who made it all possible – many of them still alive today. Audrey Court in Lancashire, Dilys Went in Kenilworth, Delia Morris in Shrewsbury, Helen Humpreys in Presteigne, Barbara Law in Gatehouse of Fleet, Elinor Corfan in Birmingham…..Happy birthday FPA.

Family Planning Survey3