Sixty Years a Nurse

by Mary Hazard

  I watched all this happening and I felt sorry for Mr Poysner. I’d got very fond of him by now, and I could see his grandson had made a great effort in bringing in a pint mug. Where was the harm? So I came up with a plan, which, God help me, I put into action. ‘Sweet Jesus,’ I thought, ‘I’m for it if Sister catches me,’ but I was determined to let Mr Poysner have a bit of pleasure, after all, as he had so little else. So I wheeled him out to the sluice, where there were big windows that opened onto the long, outside balconies. Then I whispered to his grandson to go downstairs and wait for me to throw something out to him. I opened the window and waited. When Joey appeared with his pint of whelks, I threw down a bit of rope, with a bucket on the end from the sluice, and got him to put the whelks in the bucket. Then I looked down the corridor: no Sister in sight. I came back to the window and hauled up the whelks on the end of the rope, out of sight of Sister. My heart was pounding, but I thought, ‘Why shouldn’t he have a bit of fun?’ We put the whelks on the floor in the bucket and I got him a little dish and he demolished the lot. He loved them. ‘Oh, Gladys,’ said Mr Poysner, with his eyes moistening, ‘you’re a bloomin’ angel, you are. Gawd bless you, luv.’ He ate his whelks with such gusto, it was very gratifying. He offered them to me, and I tried one out of courtesy, but it was cold, slimy and briny – a bit like snot, I thought – and really not for me. However, for Mr Poysner it was nectar of the gods and I could see the huge pleasure it gave him. His grandson was really pleased, too, as he was very close to his dear old grand-dad. Apparently, eating whelks in vast quantities was clearly a big part of the family tradition in the East End, especially on a Sunday.

  All the while I was totally on edge, thinking, ‘God, if Sister finds me I’ll be for the high jump.’ I’d be twitching away, looking over my shoulder, keeping watch. However, during visiting hour things were usually quite quiet, and Sister would get on with her paperwork, unless there was some sort of an emergency. We did this trick with the whelks two or three times overall. Joey would arrive and signal to me he had a white enamel pint mug of whelks, so I’d disappear off to the sluice with Mr Poysner and get out my piece of rope which I stashed away in the back of a drawer. I felt like I was doing a real social service. I knew Sister would have murdered me if she’d found out, but she never did, I’m glad to say. However, dear old Mr Poysner died a few weeks after the last whelk feast. There was nothing that we could do about his cancer, as, again, he had left it very late and in those days it was a fatal disease. At least I’d done my best to try to bring him some pleasure and respite, despite things being so austere and hopeless overall. As a ‘Gladys’, I felt extremely pleased and gratified to have brought him a little bit of happiness with his baccy, sweets and, especially, his grandson’s pints of whelks.

  8

  Letting My Hair Down

  At Putney Hospital we all worked long, hard hours, five and a half days a week, as trainee nurses, and even when the work was done we would be studying and preparing for exams; or we’d be sitting in lessons with Sister Tutor or doing something unspeakable to Araminta for the umpteenth time. The camaraderie was fantastic, and despite the differences between us trainees, which basically centred on class, religion or nationality, we all looked out for each other, most of the time. Of course, there were squabbles, and minor jealousies, but on the whole we were all in the same boat, exhausted, broke and yet eager to complete our training and become proper SRNs. Naturally, we all wanted to let our hair down from time to time, and find a boyfriend … something only some of us seemed particularly successful at achieving – and I have to say it was usually not me.

  Round the back of the hospital, on Barnes Common, there was an old-fashioned grass bowling green and we used to watch the local boys and men play in the evenings, especially when it was warm weather. Grass bowling attracted all sorts back then; it wasn’t just an old people’s game. We off-duty nurses would hang out the windows, sneaking a quick fag, and call out to the lads. It was a bit naughty, and if my mother had seen me she would have called me all sorts of names and pulled me inside, and would have given me a walloping, no messing. However, as nurses we were severely deprived of eligible male company, as there were very few male nurses back then, or at least none in our part of the hospital, and the doctors lived on another planet to us while the porters and other male staff were usually quite old or married (or both). So my best mates, Jenny, Hanse, Christe, Susan and I would gaze out the window in our spare hours, especially in the spring and summer, hoping to catch the gaze of some of the more good-looking young men. In fact, my friend Susan found herself a boyfriend, and then a husband, by luring him over from the bowling green to chat below our window, one summer’s evening. There was much giggling and joshing as the boys chatted us up, and Susan and her fella would go down and smoke a cigarette together on the grass, and then she’d get on the back of his Vespa, and buzz off somewhere locally for a couple of hours for a drink or for a bit of innocent ‘slap and tickle’, as we called it then. There was no contraception available if you weren’t married, and the only thing men could get hold of were horrible ‘rubber Johnnies’ or condoms, and it was something none of us nurses would talk about. The idea was to be abstemious or ‘careful’ (whatever that meant). Meanwhile, I’d watch wistfully out of the window, as Susan whizzed off into the sunset on the pillion with her beau, as I was absolutely sure no one would ever really want to whisk me away on the back of their Vespa for a bit of you-know-what.

  I was very much an innocent then, on the sexual front. I’d had it drummed into me over and over, since the year dot, that things carnal were a mortal sin, and I had visions of the most terrible things that would happen to me if I transgressed. I had been brainwashed well and truly from very early on about the terrors of hell, and warned severely and regularly by my mother and the likes of Sister Margaret and the other tyrannical nuns, so the message went deep into my soul. Although I rejected so much of Catholicism intellectually (and also through my challenging behaviour, which was constantly at odds with the whole thing), the indoctrination of mortal sin went deep. I would be terrified of getting things wrong, doing bad deeds, getting into trouble and ending up roasting on a spit somewhere unspeakable. And yet, my rebellious, spirited nature meant that was where I was heading, no doubt at all. Plus, when it came to things like sex (I could hardly say the ‘s’ word out loud), I found I had a deep reluctance to engage at all, despite temptations, due to all that had been drummed into me about sins of the flesh. It would take a great deal for me to be tempted into bed, or even into an extended frolic with a man, especially having seen what I had seen in hospital, by now, as a trainee nurse. The results of unprotected sex were not a pretty picture, I can tell you.

  So I kept myself to myself pretty easily, and I wasn’t really lured or allured – as yet. One of the first things I noticed, especially on night duty in the men’s wards, was the men’s blankets would be like little tents in the middle of the night or early morning. The first few times I saw this, I had no idea what on earth was going on – I was very confused indeed. It took a while until a wiser and older Jenny whispered in my ear what was going on, and I blushed red as a beetroot, to the roots of my hair, and exclaimed out loud, ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, I’d no idea!’ And I hadn’t. I wouldn’t have known an erection if I’d fallen over one (which I probably would have). I’d only just seen and handled my first penises, and they were always floppy old things belonging to fairly elderly or sick men. How on earth was I to know that men had erections in the middle of the night or early morning, and it was all an involuntary thing? I’d never been near an erection in my life, although I’d nearly pulled the penis off the poor old dead policeman Mr Johnson when I’d tried to extract his catheter during my first few weeks (which I shuddered to recall). When I talked to Jenny she explained that a lot of the men were having circumcisions in their thirties and forties as their foreskins were too tight, and they couldn’t pee or make love properly. We were told to put Vaseline on the end of their
penis and push it back down, and that was quite a job for an innocent, inexperienced Catholic-raised girl, I can tell you. I was embarrassed and they were embarrassed – it was red faces all round. No one had ever given me any proper sex education, and even as trainee nurses our knowledge was limited to very basic reproductive information, mainly looking at bunny rabbit corpses pickled in formaldehyde. The niceties of everyday bunny-free sexuality were far and away beyond me – so far.

  However, we did like to go out and let our hair down, whenever we could. Of course, there was always the issue of getting enough money together. After paying Bert the porter for our Woodbines, we were often only left with a few shillings for snacks, clothes and entertainment. In those days there were no such things as portable radios (they didn’t come in until the 1960s), and we certainly couldn’t afford our own record players. There were those large wireless radios, in wooden boxes, that had to be tuned in, and we didn’t have one in the nurses’ home. Also no one had the money for a long-playing record player (that played vinyl), so the only places we could hear music and let our hair down was in a local coffee bar, like Mario’s (which would have a juke-box), or even more wildly, we’d go out dancing either locally in Putney or Hammersmith (the Palais was famous), or even ‘up West’, to a big dance hall like the Lyceum Ballroom. In fact, it wasn’t unknown for us to go up to town, and go round collecting the glass ‘pop’ bottles (like R. Whites dandelion and burdock, cream soda or lemonade) in a park, like Green Park, and then take them back to the grocers’ shops to get the deposit money. We got two old pennies for each bottle, so if we were shrewd and worked hard we could pick up enough money to cover our dance tickets, drinks and bus fares all evening. (It was just like collecting the old scrumpy apples when I was a child and selling them to the local shop.) Anyway, we would eat some food in the local Lyons Corner House, which were popular cafés at the time, and take our dancing clothes in a bag, and then change and smarten ourselves up in the lavatories, so we came out fresh and ready to enjoy the evening. It wasn’t the most salubrious place to get changed, but it was fun, and we always had a giggle doing it.

  Sometimes the hospital would have a staff ball, in the summer and also at Christmas, which was fun, but the rest of the time we would go out on the town, locally. If it was a ball or a proper dance, out would come my one and only green strapless gown, which I’d worn in Clonmel at sixteen, and I would smarten it up with a new flower corsage or some sparkly embroidery. The same old dance shoes were worn over and over – in those days I had one pair and that was it, and I simply wore them until they fell apart totally in the end. If I was going out to a local pub or dance hall, I would wear a tight-waisted full skirt, sometimes with a big net underskirt, and my off-the-shoulder dirndl blouse, a short cardigan or bolero. I would ‘set’ my hair on rollers, put on red lipstick and powder, wear stilettos or court shoes, with my best seamed stockings, and feel like I looked a hundred dollars. Then we’d go out dancing, which was all the rage – it was the main way to enjoy yourself, and the main way to meet and get closer to a man.

  We might go out once a week, if we had the cash, and all dressed up, we’d hop on a trolley bus (these buses back then were attached to an electric cable overhead by a long wire), and we’d go to the Hammersmith Palais. We would have our Woodbines to smoke, tucked in our little clutch handbags, but we would not be able to go to the bar to buy a drink; it wasn’t really done then for a woman to approach the bar on her own. So we’d stand and smoke or sit and smoke, looking decorative, round the sides of the room, until a man would come up and offer to buy a drink or take us for a whirl round the dance floor. If someone bought me a drink, it would probably be a Dubonnet and lemon, or a gin and orange. This would be a drink that would last all night sometimes, or until the next man bought me one. It wasn’t done for women to drink beer, certainly not pints; and wine was a rare drink, only drunk at Christmas or on special occasions and was very expensive. We only really ever had wine with meals back then, and in restaurants or for events like christenings, birthdays or funerals. So I learned to nurse a drink all evening if I had to, and most certainly would not have gone and bought in a round. Sometimes we would go into town, and end up going to a hotel along the Strand with the men we’d been dancing with all night, and having eggs and bacon at three in the morning, with tea or coffee, and that was very exciting. Again, we would need to get home afterwards, and also we’d need our beaus to pay, usually, as we weren’t really up to hotel prices.

  In the early fifties there were ‘Teddy Boys’ who wore sharp suits, with velvet collars, Brylcreme-slicked quiffs on their hair, like Elvis, who was just coming into vogue, wearing crepe-soled shoes and shoelace ties. They were always very smart and could be charming, if a bit rough. Also, there were ex-soldiers, and plenty of guys still serving in the forces; and local policemen and firemen, who were tough and muscly. And, of course, there were Beatniks, who hung out mainly in coffee bars, and who were intellectuals, and who preferred jazz (like Miles Davis) to the jitterbug. They were always in their ‘Sloppy Joe’ black jumpers, with their big, black square glasses and even grew their hair a bit (which meant it was over their ears. This was deemed long, and wild, in this ‘short-back-and-sides’ era). I preferred the Teddy Boys to the Beatniks, and overall was more interested in the men in uniforms than anyone else, if the truth be told. There was always something about a man in a uniform that was very attractive to us nurses. I think the same was true for the men; they liked us in our uniforms, too.

  The off-duty policemen could be great fun. I met quite a few and they would dance me off my feet, amazingly. During my first year I met a very attractive policeman, a detective, and we went out once on a date. I always liked going to the pictures, and he’d buy me a box of chocolates and we’d go out to a pub for a quick drink afterwards. I was really keen on him, until he revealed he had a wife and two children at home, and I was utterly horrified, and had no intention of ever getting involved with a married man, so that was the end of that. Then one late evening he came into Casualty, with lacerated fingers from searching a criminal who had razor blades in his pocket. He needed stitching and dressing, and I was very annoyed and upset to see him, but had to treat him, as it was my job and I was on duty. Suddenly, he came over all charming and said, ‘Why don’t you answer the phone when I call?’ Well, we only had one communal telephone in the nurses’ home, which hung on the wall in the hall, and everyone could hear everyone’s business. I said, ‘You’ve got a nerve, as you’re married.’ He said, ‘I’m not married any more,’ and he looked at me imploringly. I thought ‘Serves you right,’ and I bandaged him, but that was it as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t interested, as he had already lied to me – how could I ever trust him again?

  However, it didn’t stop me going out dancing with my pals – it was the main way I let my hair down, how we all did. Unfortunately, the curfew at the nurses’ home was ten o’clock, so my friends and I would have to start for home at nine thirty, which was ridiculously early and a real evening spoiler. The main aim was to find a man with a car who could give us a lift home at the end of the evening. Jenny was particularly good at picking up guys and she’d come up behind the back of the guy I would be dancing with and would do a triumphant thumbs up, signalling she’d found us a ride. Disgruntled, the men used to say, ‘Why are you going so early?’ or ‘What’s the rush?’ However, we would not want to tell them we were nurses, because nurses had a reputation for being ‘fast’ (in other words, loose women). Nurses were thought to be free and easy on the sexual front, and we weren’t. Or at least, I wasn’t. I’m sure that’s what my married policeman had thought; well, I’d taught him otherwise.

  So we used to make up stories that we were secretaries working in a local firm, morticians or shoe-shop workers, or that we were visiting a rich auntie in a local block of flats or some other plausible story. I waited for the lightning bolts to descend on my head as I told these porkie pies, but I was amazed when nothing happened. Inevita
bly, we would be late for our curfew, and the off-duty policemen would offer a lift in their motorbike sidecars. These were fantastic – they were little covered pods, on wheels, with a seat for one person, which were built onto the side of a powerful police motorbike. I often found myself in one of these, at eleven o’clock at night, with no seat belt to put on (they didn’t have them back then), roaring along the road, wind in my hair, towards Putney and Barnes. It was very exciting. However, I usually got the guy to drop me before I got to the hospital, pretending I lived in a local residential house, and that I worked nearby in the local shops or whatever. It’s amazing looking back to see the lengths I went to make sure I kept up the story – we were scared of the sisters’ and Matron’s reaction, and also scared the men would come and pester us and give the game away to Home Sister, who would go absolutely nuts. I would give my driver for the night a demure peck on the cheek, even a little kiss and cuddle maybe, especially if he was nice, but absolutely no more. I had to keep my wits about me, and I had my good reputation to maintain. I’d seen enough failed abortions to not want to go there myself, plus there was always the issue of mortal sin or hell and eternal damnation, hanging over my head like the proverbial Sword of Damocles.

  Then it was an almighty scramble back to the hospital where a very goody-goody Irish nurse, called Kathleen, who always had her rosary clanking round her neck, would open the bottom window in the nurses’ home so we could all clamber in late. Inevitably we’d be a bit tipsy and high on the adventure, and there would be a lot of ‘sshhh-ing’ and giggling as we all landed in a heap in Kathleen’s room. By now Sister would be doing her late-night rounds of the nurses’ home to inspect that everything was in apple-pie order, so we’d have to be quiet, and time our slightly drunken entrance impeccably, so we didn’t get caught out. Sister would open bedroom doors and swing her flashlight into our rooms to check all was well. We anticipated this by stuffing our beds with pillows and our pyjamas, so it looked like everything was normal, and we were fast asleep, like good little nurses should be. If Sister had found out what we were up to really, she would have gone berserk, and we’d have really been for it.