WE have a couple of very old photographs of the children’s ward at Blackburn Royal Infirmary, both taken between the two world wars.

The first was taken in 1935/6 at Christmas. The ward has a very big tree, while the youngsters are also all playing with toys.

The plaque on the back wall says ‘The Thomas James Forrest,’ August 1935 — maybe it was the very first Christmas there for the nurses and patients.

It’s been sent in by Pauline Walsh, as the child in the cot with the doll’s house is her auntie Olive, who, she says, was in hospital for five weeks.

Added Pauline: “During that time her parents could only visit on a Sunday afternoon.

"This may have been because of the hospital rules or it may have been because of the working hours that people did in the 1930s.”

Our second photograph goes even further back — to the Christmas of 1921 —and was sent in from the family album by Christine Harper of Oswaldtwistle.

The little boy on the left, just visible among the nursing staff, in the starched white aprons, is the late Arthur Hobkirk, who was about seven and had apparently broken his left leg in a road accident in Audley range.