David Gast

South Street

My name is David Gast and in 1955, when I was 11 years old, I underwent Cobalt Bomb radiation therapy at Victoria Hospital. While I underwent treatment, I was a patient at the War Memorial Children’s Hospital.

But the radiation, that was another adventure. I enjoyed it, uh, in the sense that I went in there and they had this huge machine, and it would point at me, they’d lower it down and made a noise and had this pointed plastic tip at the end… they’d always say, “Now, don’t you move!” … I’d be laying there on my back counting the little dots in the white ceiling thing and trying to stay as still as possible. And, uh, and never once did I actually, did it register that I was in the cancer clinic division of the hospital. The signs all over the place. And that never occurred to me that I had cancer…

I haven’t told you that story about my voice. Uh, Dr. Fetterly asked me, “What, what are you studying?” I was in college at the time, and I said, “Music.” And he said, “What’s your major?” I said, “Singing is one of them.” And he said, “That’s amazing. We, we were concerned you would not talk after this radiation.” He said “To think that you’re singing professionally.” And I, I was.

…and uh, I, I loved singing… can’t sing anymore… I’d love to sing your song. I could play you one of my songs…