dead Sheila Rossall (Infamous Sick Girl From The Seventies)

[Vinegar Tits 606]

You might not know the name (and to be honest I'm not actually sure it is her name) but if you're a certain age you'll definitely remember the story...

 

Sheila Rossall was "the girl who [was] allergic to the 20th century" and swapped headlines every week in the News Of The World with Lena Zavaroni as newsworthy ill girls. Formerly the singer of New Pickettywitch - not to be confused with Pickettywitch, though to this day Polly Browne gets asked about her health due to this story - she was last heard of living in an oxygen tank in Texas, with not long to live because the money for her treatment was running out.

 

Whatever happened to her? Did she get better? Did she die? There were rumours that she was a fake but nothing was ever proven. The net has scant information about her, and most of that is people wondering whatever happened to her (including a fair amount of posts from me, because I'm sad like that ).

 

Opening up the gauntlet here - anyone?

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

I think her name was Shelia Rostell or Rostill or summat. She had - apparantly - once been in the band Middle of the Road although I've just trawled all over their site and can't find a mention of her. Maybe her interpretation of 'in' the band was a session of backing vocals. You'll be delighted - though - to discover they're still going with 61 year Sally Carr still out front.

 

Can't find owt on the net about her but I'll keep diggin'. I'd lay at least 10p the little drama queen is still alive.

[Handrejka 1,903]

Her name's Sheila Rossall and the only thing I can find about her is that she is the sister of John Rossall who was in The Glitter Band. There's enough info on him on the web, so perhaps someone can e-mail him?

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

Shelia Rossall!!!

 

She's served me a pint. I seriously doubt it's the same person.

[Vinegar Tits 606]

once been in the band Middle of the Road

It was definitely New Pickettywitch she was a member of, as Sally Carr was with Middle Of The Road pretty much from the beginning, or at least when it mattered.

 

I shall ask around re the name of 'Sheila Rossall', as I'm sure a few of the more geeky spods I know will remember. I also bet she's still alive. While she had a bugger of a 20th century, maybe she isn't allergic to the 21st century...

[Lady Die 63]

I found this 1981 article about her. Nothing recent though.

 

Being "of a certain age" I remember hearing about her, although I'd forgotten for over twenty years. It's one of those memories that lies deep in your subconscious .... a bit like white dog poo (the memory of white dog poo, not the poo itself).

[VSBfromH 74]

Rossall / Russell, whatever...

 

Sheila Russell is mentioned in this link. Also from way back (25 years ago).

 

"Chevy, Dark Horse and Orphan are all playing at a benefit gig at the Birmingham Barrel Organ on June 13 for Sheila Russell, the former singer with Pickety Witch who is allergic to the 20th century and undergoing treatment in Texas.

(Sounds, 13/06/81)"

 

Also gets a mention here, though obviously this is not to be taken seriously!

 

"The former lead singer with 70’s folk band Pickety Witch, Sheila Russell, famous for being allergic to modern day life and spending most of her life in a bubble was unavailable for comment. “She’s had a severe reaction to the telephone receiver,” said an intensive care nurse."

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

I remember seeing her on - I think - Nationwide where they discussed her condition and she sat there blank eyed at one point and said something like: 'Only death is left now.' That's why I reckoned she was part drama queen.

 

VT, I think you're right, I have that same old feeling it was Pickettywitch. Oddly, the usually flawless tome on sixties to mid seventies bands 'The Tapestry of Delights' omits to mention her in its entry on the band.

[Rotten Ali 600]

Any one got any lifestyle or illness info on Jane Russell?

[Lady Die 63]

Re Sheila Russell/Rossall, someone here says she was a hoaxer faking it to get attention.

[VSBfromH 74]

Any one got any lifestyle or illness info on Jane Russell?

 

Only this from her IMDB bio:

 

"In 2006 (at age 84), Jane put together a musical show entitled "The Swinging Forties" that plays twice a month at the Radisson Hotel. The show features herself and about a dozen local Santa Maria residents, including a choir director, lay preacher and retired police officer. She formed the show out of boredom and because there was nothing much going on in town for the older folks to do."

 

and:

 

"Has macular degeneration and wears hearing aids in both ears."

 

Not exactly life-threatening conditions!

[Vinegar Tits 606]

I have that same old feeling it was Pickettywitch.

She was a member of New Pickettywitch. They were a kind of fake Pickettywitch (why???), not dissimilar to the fake Fleetwood Mac that did the rounds in the mid 70s who ended up changing their name to Stretch.

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

I remember seeing a documentary about her on BBC2 years ago, and it seemed she was really a fraud who had conned everybody.......she was an attention seeker and I think she may have had mental problems

 

From the message board linked above. I wouldn't be too surprised. I remember the interview on Nationwide and what struck me was the cheap theatrics about the whole thing.

 

Re New Pickettywitch, the old one split with various members going into other styles of music, mainly because they didn't want to be treated like puppets making chart fodder. The New Pickettywitch was even more of a non-event than the New New Seekers.

 

Not at all like the storming rock gods Middle of the Road who still pack 'em in, especially in Germany.

[Alphonsin 1]

Hello. Have been reading this site for a while, although this is my first post.

Anyhow, the following on Ms Rossall from The Sunday Times [apologies if it's already been linked to, but it doesn't appear to have been]:

 

TOTAL ALLERGY OR TOTAL BUNKUM?

By Lois Rogers.

13 June 1993

 

 

When Sheila Rossall, the former pop singer, announced that she was allergic to the 20th century, many doctors raised their eyebrows. Rossall, who sang for the 1970s band New Pickettywitch, lived in a filtered air bubble and was shuttled across the Atlantic for treatment at the taxpayer's expense.

 

At the height of her illness, she was reported to weigh less than 4st. She ate no solid food for a year, and could not tolerate even the plastic mask giving her oxygen.

 

Doctors who were sceptical about Rossall's condition are unlikely to have changed their minds since the singer's apparent recovery from her illness. Ten years on, she has completely overcome her "total allergy syndrome" but has, it seems, been treated for depression. What is more as doctors at the time pointed out how could someone claim to be allergic to virtually everything, and yet show no antibody activity in her blood? Tests on Rossall revealed none of the antibodies usually produced by the body as a reaction to allergies.

 

But despite the controversy surrounding environmental allergies and Rossall's own return to a more normal way of life, the number of her fellow sufferers appears to be growing, and a band of complementary medical specialists has grown up to treat the condition.

 

Jane Houlton, 39, a former business consultant now living in North Yorkshire, has no doubts about the pernicious effects of allergy. She has been severely incapacitated by more than 80 allergies, and is unable to tolerate everyday objects such as lavatory paper, toothpaste, and even tap water. She has to inject herself five times a day with desensitising agents, and her diet is restricted to a maximum of 20 foods and one brand of bottled water.

 

She is convinced the symptoms were triggered when her firm of City accountants moved to an unfinished office building, heavy with the fumes of new paint, plastics and carpets. She has not been back to London since headaches, vomiting, arthritis and blistering skin finally forced her to give up work.

 

Houlton rejects the total allergy syndrome label, with its undertones of neurosis, preferring to describe the condition as environmental sensitivity. However, like Rossall, she was initially cared for in a hermetically sealed treatment unit, breathing only purified, filtered air, while efforts began to trace her allergens.

 

Five years on, she has to ration her exposure to cars, "air" her toddler's toys in the loft to remove plastic fumes, and stand well clear of the washing-up bowl when she squirts in the detergent. Deodorants and cosmetics are out of the question.

 

"It's true that some days I do get very depressed," she said, "but you have to think in terms of what you can do, and not what you can't. It would be daft to describe myself as being allergic to the 20th century, but I have to be realistic. Although I loved my work, the office had made me ill, and even when I moved back to the old building, the symptoms did not improve. I honestly don't think I would have had these problems if I had never gone to work there. It just seemed to switch on a reaction in me, which has gone on more or less ever since. The only thing which keeps me going is the determination to get better."

 

She has written a comprehensive self-help manual, which as well as dealing with more conventional allergies such as hay fever or asthma, gives advice to people who think they may be allergic to their fitted kitchen, daily newspaper or even fumes from burning bread in the toaster. There may be a psychological element in some cases of multi-allergy, Houlton concedes, but she says: "I would never say it is all in the mind. I get very angry when doctors say there's nothing you can do about it. Some people suffer psychological stress simply by not being believed."

 

Her initial treatment was carried out by Dr Jonathan Maberley, a physician at Airedale General Hospital, who also runs a private allergy centre offering to "dry people out from the environment". To diagnose allergies, he injects minute quantities of potential irritant substances into the outer layers of skin: if a blister forms it denotes allergy. In a non-reactive person the substance would just disperse. In Houlton's case this process revealed more than 80 allergies. The centre has treated 500 patients since 1985, but only about 5% of these cases had intractable problems.

 

"It can be quite difficult to deal with some of these patients because many have been ill for so long without being believed that they have psychological problems on top of the allergy ones," said Dr Maberley. "Of course we see patients who would rather be ill than have treatment, but allergy study has only been recognised as a medical specialty since 1987, and there is still a great deal more research needed."

 

Orthodox medicine still frowns on environmental allergy because there is no physical quantifiable indicator that, for exam ple, someone is allergic to their synthetic-fibre carpet. Dr Tony Frew, an immunology expert based at one of Britain's foremost allergy research centres at Southampton University, said: "Mainstream doctors find it difficult to come to terms with this environmental allergy idea because there have always been people with symptoms of vague malaise, and there is no definitive test to prove it is caused by allergy. There's obviously something there, but it's difficult to separate the mumbo jumbo from things we could learn from."

 

In Sheila Rossall's case, her story was followed slavishly by the media, and became more bizarre by the day. The Bristol MP William Waldegrave supervised the #6,000 conversion of a special council flat when she returned from expensive treatment in California; there were claims that #65,000 raised by a fan to pay her hospital fees had been mis-spent, and reports that police investigating the allegations would have to wear "vinegar-soaked cotton nighties" to interview her. But after she returned to Britain in 1982, she vanished into obscurity.

 

Her brother, Robert Rossall, said: "She just wants to be left in peace now. She feels she has been taken advantage of by the press who have treated her as a freak or a fake."

 

The Allergy Survival Guide, by Jane Houlton, is published by Vermilion, price #10.99.

[Paul Bearer 6,101]

Thanks for that Alphonsin, and welcome to the forum. Hope you plan to stick around

[Octopus of Odstock 2,187]

I echo HCW's greetings, as in a stroke you've answered the query and given hope to all those Jane Tomlinson conspiracy theorists like me that people can fake illnesses and then "recover."

Just imagine how pissed off you'd be if you put Rossall on a DP in 1982.

[Phantom 2,533]

Her brother, Robert Rossall, said: "She just wants to be left in peace now. She feels she has been taken advantage of by the press who have treated her as a freak or a fake."

 

Sounds like she was a fake who had taken advantage of tax payers' money and should have been treated for depression right at the start.

[The Pooka 26]

I wouldn't mind betting that she had an eating disorder and, at some point, that she self-harmed.

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

If only she'd sung about that the world might remember New Pickettywitch. S'funny innit, the ones with eating problems and f**ked up lives are often those grinning from ear to ear and singing happy pop songs.

[Handrejka 1,903]

I wouldn't mind betting that she had an eating disorder and, at some point, that she self-harmed.

 

 

Sounds very much like an eating disorder to me. Claiming allergies is a good way to let your eating disorders go unoticed and it's much cheaper than laxatives.

 

Oh and well done to our newbie who found that article. I was looking for ages and the most recent articles I found were from 1981. Respect

[Handrejka 1,903]

If only she'd sung about that the world might remember New Pickettywitch. S'funny innit, the ones with eating problems and f**ked up lives are often those grinning from ear to ear and singing happy pop songs.

 

 

Rainy Days and Mondays and Goodbye to Love are such happy songs aren't they.

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

Such a feelins comin over me, there is wonder in most everything I see, and the reason is clear, it's because you are near, your love's put me on the top of the world.

 

 

If she'd meant a word of that she wouldn't have starved herself to death, would she?

 

Mind you, the all time irony king was George Formby, in the early sixties, out of time, out of touch, widowed and faced with a heart condition that could kill him at any moment he recorded his last minor hit:

 

'Happy Go Lucky Me'

[Handrejka 1,903]

Such a feelins comin over me, there is wonder in most everything I see, and the reason is clear, it's because you are near, your love's put me on the top of the world.

 

 

If she'd meant a word of that she wouldn't have starved herself to death, would she?

 

Mind you, the all time irony king was George Formby, in the early sixties, out of time, out of touch, widowed and faced with a heart condition that could kill him at any moment he recorded his last minor hit:

 

'Happy Go Lucky Me'

 

Of course she didn't mean it. She didn't ever write it, her tit of of a brother did. How many singers of that time did mean what they singing about anyway?

(Please don't get me started on the Carpenters)

[The Pooka 26]

(Please don't get me started on the Carpenters)

 

That's not a line you hear too often.

[Anubis the Jackal 77]

I must disagree, Formby probably was fairly happy-go-lucky at the time. His deceased wife was a bit of a tyrant by all accounts, and he spent most of his time as a widower finally getting to splash his considerable wealth on wine, women and song. (albeit fairly sh*t song)

This no doubt contributed to his demise, but he went out with a bang apparently.

Mind you, the all time irony king was George Formby, in the early sixties, out of time, out of touch, widowed and faced with a heart condition that could kill him at any moment he recorded his last minor hit:

 

'Happy Go Lucky Me'