Sixty Years a Nurse

by Mary Hazard

  I was dumbfounded. I had no idea such things went on at all. Thinking back to Ireland, I supposed now there must have been homosexuals there, but it was so totally taboo and I wouldn’t have recognised it, or them, if they had lain across my path, stark naked. It was something I just knew nothing at all about. But now my eyes were opened, I could only see how Suzan and Brenda were all over each other. It was just like the boys and girls on the dance floor on Saturday night, but it was two girls. I couldn’t imagine what it was really like to be them. I had never imagined it before. So now, when we all huddled in my room at night, over the Woodbines and Merrydown, the main topic of conversation was the two female lovebirds. We did gossip about them, because we were so curious, and the whole idea was so novel. We giggled as we imagined what they might get up to, and, fuelled by Merrydown, our descriptions got quite graphic and lewd. It was all good-natured high spirits, largely down to our feeling embarrassed and out of our depth. We didn’t send them to Coventry, or anything like that, and tried to treat them just the same way as any other nurses, especially as we had to work together. But I was curious, and I wondered how many other nurses were that way inclined. It made me wonder, too, about all the unmarried sisters – were they closet lesbians, too? Had I missed the clues all this time?

  Anyway, things were going to take a turn for the worse, and later on I would feel very guilty indeed about those hours of gossipy drinking sessions we had at the two women’s expense. All the gossip must have got back to Matron somehow, and we heard one day that Suzan and Brenda had been carpeted. I guess their behaviour was fairly apparent to all, but I knew it would be pretty serious if they were really two women together in love, and got found out somehow, especially as male homosexuality was still illegal. Apparently, they had been seen separately and told, in no uncertain terms, by an irate Matron that their behaviour had to stop immediately or they would have to leave Putney Hospital. I could imagine Matron being very scolding and cold as she told them they would be thrown out of the nurses’ home if they did not clean up their act. We had no idea whether Brenda put up a fight (she was what Jenny called the more ‘butch’ of the two), or whether Suzan broke down in tears, but in the next couple of days we could see that they were very unhappy, sitting separately in the canteen or going about their chores on their own. They looked so sad and miserable, not being together, like always, and my heart really went out to them, poor things. I’d been up in front of Matron enough times to know how embarrassing and humiliating it all felt to be told off, and the fact we all knew their business now, as well, I could see that it was totally excruciating for them. Their secret love was out of the bag, and the poor nurse cats were being tortured in public.

  Then one morning, soon after the ultimatum meetings with Matron, we heard a loud commotion before breakfast. The maid had knocked on Suzan’s door, for her early morning call, and did not get any response. She had hammered and hammered on the door, and then had gone to get Home Sister, who had the master key to her room. They had found Suzan unconscious, and at first they thought she was dead. Suzan was carted off to the women’s medical ward, but remained unconscious. They examined her, but no one had any idea what had happened. Had she had a stroke? Or a heart attack? It was all very hush-hush as, back then, something like suicide was not spoken about either. Another taboo. Another sin. Another thing that could not be talked about. Sweet Jesus. However, there was no trace of pills or alcohol, and the doctors were puzzled as to what had happened. She was definitely in a coma, and she did not come round for days. We were all very upset as Suzan was a total sweetie. I began to feel very guilty. Had our gossip got back to Matron somehow? I felt we were culpable in some way and felt dreadfully sorry for her, for them both. Suzan was a quiet, kind soul, who was an excellent nurse, and also was very beautiful. Brenda was beside herself and totally inconsolable. She visited Suzan, and sat by her bedside, in a silent, miserable vigil, but there was hardly any sign of life. Brenda took herself off to her room and we could hear her sobbing at night. It was absolutely terrible. We tried to comfort her, but she locked herself away and wouldn’t talk to us. Perhaps she blamed us, who knows.

  Then, when they stripped Suzan’s bed, finally all was revealed. They found, under her mattress, a syringe and an empty phial. She had stolen a bottle of insulin and had injected herself, and put herself into a terrible coma. The real tragedy was that she never, ever recovered. The insulin turned her into an imbecile, and she was eventually carted off to an institution in Epsom for the mentally ill. She was a vegetable after this, and was only twenty. I guess she might have been in there for the rest of her life. I don’t know what happened to her in the long term, but she was just sitting in an armchair, dribbling, and was unable to speak or do anything for herself when I visited. It was utterly heart-breaking. I felt terribly for her, as it was worse than suicide – it was a living death. Brenda was also destroyed by the whole episode. She had lost her true love, and she could not continue in Putney Hospital, either. So she volunteered to become a missionary in Africa, and disappeared quite quickly soon afterwards. It was the most devastating incident, and we all felt very bad for them both, especially for Suzan, whose life had really ended so badly, so soon. It was such a lesson to me about what happened if you did not fit in, and I felt life was really terrible for lesbians and gay people after that. I vowed that I would understand more, and gossip less – and certainly learn to judge more kindly. We were told by Home Sister not to refer to the incident again, and that we had to forget about it all, and to get on with our lives and our jobs as nurses. The whole thing was never mentioned again, although I never, ever forgot it – not even to this day.

  10

  Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook

  Despite the deeply tragic love story of Brenda and Suzan, which affected all of us trainee nurses and cast a cloud over our year, life went on in the hospital as usual. At the end of the first and second year we had written exams and a practical, and I was pleased (and a little amazed) to pass them. I had swotted quite hard, as I actually liked exams, and learning (something I’d got from my mother and her quizzes), although I’d been quite naughty at school. I think the practical nature of nursing, of applying my learning, suited me down to the ground. Meanwhile, hospital life was always coming at us, and despite this horrific tragedy we were swept along by emergencies, births, deaths, operations, accidents, duties, chores, you name it. I had learned that it was no use moping, and the hard work extracted out of us was always a brilliant antidote to whenever I felt sad, nostalgic, lonely, worried or angry about something. Working hard was the name of the nursing game, and we were expected to roll up our sleeves and get on with whatever task was thrown at us. Plus, the rigid hospital hierarchies meant that you never, ever questioned what was thrown at you: it was ‘Yes, Sister,’ or ‘No, Matron,’ or ‘Right away, Staff,’ no matter how you felt or what you thought. In that sense, nursing was a bit like being in the military: we were part of a community, part of a regiment, and each of us played our part in ‘getting things done’. We had to ‘jump to it’ and ‘turn our hands to anything’. And most importantly of all, we had to be ‘at the ready’ for ‘action’ for the greater good of Putney Hospital, and, of course, the patients and community it served. In a way, the hospital was also a microcosm of the bigger society beyond its walls, as it had its own sewing room, dining room, kitchens, gardens and vegetable patches, laundry and mortuary. It was like a self-sufficient medical community, and it was possible for us to live there and never go anywhere else at all (we would have gone nuts, however, if we’d stayed in all the time). Luckily there was a pub, The Spencer, owned by the Spencer family (Princess Diana’s ancestors), literally crawling distance across the road from the hospital, so we were able to pop in there occasionally (when we were off duty, and when we had the cash) to get a breather, or to buy our much-needed bottles of Merrydown cider and a packet of Woodbines. Otherwise, life at Putney Hospital was all-consuming, all-demanding, and simply a complete way of
living, with its own customs, regulations and quirks.

  Although most of our training was on all the different wards – medical, surgical, children’s – as well as casualty and theatre during the day, we always had to do a fair amount of night duty, too. And one of the strange things about being on night duty was the fact that we had ‘dinner’ in the middle of the night. I never really got the hang of it, as my whole bodily system would get turned upside down by the early mornings, late nights, and then the reverse, when I went back to day duty. If I did nights, it was always difficult to sleep in the daytime, and I often felt short of sleep and exhausted. Plus, I missed the daylight, and eating at any time of day or night wreaked havoc with my body clock. But once I was on nights I felt exhausted in the early hours, so having hot food and drink was a very clever way of keeping going (except those of us who crept away and got into laundry baskets or cupboards to snatch a much-needed forty winks). However, it was very difficult to do any of that, as the main Night Sister, the notorious Beetle, was a tyrant and she had her beady eyes on absolutely everyone and her sharp little nose into everything, as she scuttled about the wards.

  The late-night dinners were cooked on site in a small upstairs kitchen by a lovely, plump woman called Ivy. There were no ready meals then, so everything was cooked from fresh, and cooked to order in the hospital. Ivy was a sweet little woman, a proper old-fashioned dinner-lady, who had been in catering for years, and she did all the common fare for the time: sausage and mash, egg and chips, lamb hotpot, chicken pie and mash, liver and bacon or beef stew with dumplings, spotted dick and custard, apple pie and custard, or rhubarb crumble, and the like. All of it very like good old-fashioned school food, which would ‘stick your ribs together’, and was accompanied usually by a nice cup of tea from a giant steaming urn. There were also scones and buns, biscuits and sandwiches with white bread and cheese and pickle, but we mostly wanted hot food when we were on nights, because we were all starving by two o’clock in the morning. Ivy usually cooked for between ten and twenty staff, and this included the hospital porters, the doctors, the nurses and anyone else who happened to be around on some duty or other. It was a strange late-night world we lived in, but I gradually got used to the routine. I felt Ivy and her hot food was an absolute life-saver for us all; it was nice to chat to other staff, and sit down and rest my weary legs.

  So one night I clocked on for duty, and turned up at the men’s medical ward, ready for the night’s work. Suddenly the Beetle appeared: ‘Come with me, Nurse Powell,’ she ordered, and set off at high speed. All I could do was say, ‘Yes, Sister,’ and follow her obediently. She clicked her way along the corridors and then clacked her way up the stairs to the kitchen, with me following behind like a little bemused gosling (although I towered over her really) following a rabid mother goose. I thought, ‘What on earth are we doing here?’ and I wondered for a horrible moment if poor old Ivy had had a heart attack or burned herself badly, or something.

  Finally, we were at the kitchen door. ‘Right, Nurse Powell,’ hissed the Beetle. ‘You are a junior nurse, and Ivy is off sick, so you are to cook for everyone.’ My jaw hit the floor. I must have looked like a bomb had dropped on me, and I started to protest. ‘Oh, Sister, no, you see I can’t …’ The Beetle wasn’t having any of it; she put her hand up to stop me speaking. ‘Nurse Powell, this is an emergency and you are to cook the dinner tonight. I don’t want to hear any excuses,’ she snapped. ‘An idiot could do this in their sleep, and I’m sure you know how to cook, so go and get on with it, nurse.’ And with that the Beetle scuttled away, leaving me open-mouthed and totally panicked. What? Me cook for everyone? This had to be a joke. I had never cooked for more than one or two people in my life, and then it had just been a fried egg and a bit of bacon. I could manage toast – just – and a cup of tea. But prepare food in bulk, from scratch, for a load of hungry, tired and grumpy hospital workers – now that was right out of my league. Absolutely impossible. I had no idea how to do complex stuff, like pastry or puddings, and had no idea about timings or quantities.

  I pushed the door and went into the little kitchen, all white tiles and stainless steel, with big pots, pans, skillets and a gas oven. Everything was clean and pristine, and then I looked at the clock – it was about ten o’clock already. Lord, people would start coming in for some food from eleven onwards and I had no idea where to start. ‘Oh sweet Jesus,’ I thought. ‘What am I to do?’ I honestly can say I panicked. My mouth was dry, my hands were sweating, my knees were knocking – and I wanted to run away. I had never been allowed to cook in my mother’s kitchen at home. ‘Get away with you, get out from under my feet’ is what my mother would cry if I approached the large cast-iron range and stove. ‘You’ll only go and ruin everything. Get away with you.’ My mother had ruled the roost, and she was a good, plain, substantial cook, but we were not allowed to touch. She dominated everything, did everything her way, and liked to eke out what we had, and made sure there was always enough to go round, fairly and squarely. No messing. She kept her five children at arm’s length, and out of harm’s way, so she was the chief, the chef, the main cook and bottle-washer, and we were her labourers. I learned basic cooking skills, but Mother was boss. And we (well, me, in particular) were simply nuisances. In the way. So I’d never learned to cook for more than a few people. I didn’t really have a clue, and I stood glued to the spot considering climbing out the window (except it was the first floor), or disappearing into a cupboard and going to sleep until it was all over. Sweet Jesus, how was I going to get out of this one alive?

  Then Percy the porter came in. My prayers were answered, obviously. He was a cheerful Cockney chap in his fifties, in his little brown porter’s coat, and he knew me well from all my regular Woodbine orders. I was peering at a piece of paper on the scrubbed wooden side counter where Ivy had written down Friday night’s menu (tonight’s) as fried fish and chips, peas, apple tart and custard, tea. So it was the typical English fish and chip supper. Yes, I’d had that many times on a Friday night myself, but had never considered for a moment what went into the process of actually creating it. I was already looking at Ivy in a completely different way: Saint Ivy, with a halo the size of a giant doughnut that I loved to eat from the local bakers hovering over her head. ‘Nurse Powell?’ Percy was standing next to me, looking at me with an extremely concerned expression. ‘Are you all right?’ ‘No, I’m not, Percy,’ I said, and burst into floods of helpless tears. ‘Whatever is the matter?’ Percy was kind. ‘What are you doing, girl?’ Suddenly, I blubbered all over him, incoherently, stuttering out that I’d never cooked fish in a big frying pan, and I had no idea how to make chips – and for so many people – so where would I start? I’d never used a deep fat fryer, had no idea how long everything took, and I was in a total state. I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t do it; and the Beetle would have my guts for garters if I didn’t do it. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ said Percy, confused. So I explained about the Beetle bringing me upstairs and telling me I had to cook for everyone as Ivy was off sick. I was not able to do the task and I’d be in trouble all over again with Sister – it was a disaster.

  Well, Percy, who was usually quite a docile little fella, suddenly hit the roof. He turned into a total Rottweiler before my eyes and sounded really angry, on my behalf. ‘Oh, it’s not on,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to go to the union. That’s Ivy’s job, it’s not your job. You shouldn’t be asked to do work that is not yours to do; the hospital ought to have a proper back-up plan – it’s a total disgrace.’ I blew my nose loudly, just as Jenny came into the kitchen. I took one look at her, my dear friend, and started blubbering all over again. Percy continued, undeterred, ‘You’ve got to go to the union, you have. It’s just not on!’ Jenny, who was always a bit of a rabble-rouser, joined in with Percy at this point. ‘Look, Mary,’ she said, trying to get me to pull myself together, ‘we are nurses, not cooks. You can’t cook for everyone, you don’t know how. Nor could I, if I was asked. It’s absolutel
y bloody ridiculous!’ I knew she was right, but the thing was an edict from the Beetle. It was simply a matter of ‘she who must be obeyed’. An order was an order, and I’d grown up thinking orders were sacrosanct (even though I tried to wriggle out of them all the time). What could I do? ‘You’ve got to go to the union,’ piped up Jenny, echoing Percy. And he continued haranguing me, too, trying to persuade me to take action. ‘It’s no good, girl. You can’t cook for this bloomin’ lot. You’ve got no ruddy idea.’ I looked up and saw that the dining room was beginning to fill up with people wandering in, looking very hungry and tired, and confused, wondering where on earth their dinner was. Oh, sweet Jesus, it was a nightmare.