A Nurse's Life: Heart-warming and humorous tales from a 1950s student nurse (Nurse Jane Grant)

by Jane Grant

  A firm hand was laid on my shoulder. ‘Now lie down, dear. You’re all right,’ said the Night Nurse.

  I began some very long and involved story, the point of which was lost as I fell asleep in the middle of it.

  I woke up in the morning feeling wonderful. I sat up brightly and demanded breakfast, and while I was waiting for it, it struck me to ask myself what I would do with hot buttered toast and tea if I had it, and I felt very, very sick.

  The next day Mr. Cheshire came to see me, much to the envy of everybody; he sat on my bed and cheerfully unwrapped my finger. Sister jumped around trying to put screens up, and all he could say was, ‘Get out of my light.’ She produced a dressing trolley with sterile dressings and towels which he completely ignored.

  He grunted, ‘Looks all right. Does it hurt?’

  I said meekly, ‘I can’t feel the top very well.’

  He laughed heartily, ‘Oh, that’s all right, I nicked the nerve.’

  ‘I suppose the feeling will come back eventually?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said happily. ‘If not, you’ll have to do without it, won’t you?’

  Chapter Nineteen

  To mark the end of my second year we had hospital exams. These consisted of three written papers, an oral, and a practical. After completing them we were sent back on the wards.

  The next problem was to complete my Schedule. A Schedule is a list of work, treatments and practical exercises, that have to be completed by the end of a nurse’s second year. We who were concerned with our Schedules listened eagerly to the treatments prescribed, hoping that they would include items we had not yet ticked off on our list.

  I approached the Sister of the Gynaecological Ward and handed her my Schedule; she sat down at her desk and went through the list of things I had not done with a heavy sigh.

  ‘Well, I suppose you could get Dressings on Mrs. Victor. There’s not much of a wound there, but you can tell the Sister Tutor it was very difficult. You can do Mrs. Leslie’s Douche. I’ll try and work in some of your Sterilizations next week.’

  ‘Yes, Sister,’ I said. I was about to go, wishing to myself that someone would have a nice operation, when the houseman came into the ward.

  ‘I haven’t time to go round now, Sister. But we’ll be operating on Mrs. Clark tomorrow.’

  I beamed. He added, ‘And you can stop Mrs. Leslie’s Douche.’

  My heart sank, and I looked imploringly at Sister. To my relief she cried: ‘Oh, no, we can’t. Several of my nurses have got to do Douching for Schedule.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said the houseman. ‘Okay,’ he added weakly, ‘well, pack it up when you can.’

  With such co-operation from Sister, I soon finished my Schedule, and took the list to the Sister Tutor. She signed it as completed, and told me to present myself at Matron’s Office the next Monday. Several others in my set were waiting outside the door, in the usual state of miserable suspense.

  My interview with Matron was brief and to the point.

  ‘Well, Nurse, do you feel equal to the extra responsibility your Strings will give you?’

  The awful story of the modest nurse who said ‘I think so’ and Matron had told her to come back in a month when she’d made up her mind, flashed through my head. I said hurriedly, ‘Yes, Matron.’

  She produced six pairs of Strings. These are flat pieces of linen about two feet long and two and a half inches wide, which by extremely cunning folding and sewing, have to become a neat bow under the chin. Contrary to popular belief, Strings do not keep the cap on, but come to a pointless end at the back of the head, where they have to be tied and clipped into position. They are extremely uncomfortable, feeling rather like a tight collar, and they often produce a starch rash.

  Mary and I took our newly acquired seniority to my room. We were joined by Phyllis and one or two friends of hers, and though we all should have been on duty, we sat down to a grand session of String Making Up. Phyllis sprawled on my bed, trying to fold the linen on an uneven surface. Mary and I crouched on the floor using the carpet for a table. The other two used some strange method which involved chopping off the ends.

  After a quarter of an hour’s hard work, I proudly produced my first pair. They were appallingly uneven in the folds, and covered with thick green pile from the carpet. Phyllis’s were the size of a chocolate box bow.

  But that evening Sister called me over to give me Report on the Ward, before she went to Meal, and a little later I was in charge of twenty-five human beings.

  Third year

  Chapter Twenty

  The tuberculosis section of St. Bernard’s was in that limbo of suburb and country that spreads out of London over Surrey. The hospital in which it was situated had been built in late Victorian times, and still served the surrounding district; it was hideous, huge, and thoroughly inconvenient. Since no one wants to work in dreary and cold surroundings with out-of-date equipment, it was not surprising that the County hospital authorities found it so hard to get nurses that they had had to close ward after ward. Eventually some of the empty wards had been offered to St. Bernard’s to be re-opened as a Unit, for the training of nurses and students in the cure and care of tuberculous patients.

  Every nurse at St. Bernard’s had to serve a minimum of three months in a tuberculosis ward, and so I knew I should have to go to Marley some time. All the same my heart sank when I heard the time had come.

  It is usual for a nurse to be sent away in company with one or more of her friends; this makes the disagreeable duty rather more acceptable. But Phyllis, who had also been told to report to Marley, had gone down with tonsillitis, and on the appointed evening, in the depths of gloom, I had to go down by train alone. It was early spring, but there was an icy wind and sleet-like rain, and when I came out of the station I got wet and cold queueing for the bus. Once inside it, I was carried along shivering through streets each one of which looked drearier than the last, till the bus stopped at a corner and the conductor informed me: ‘Hospital’s down there, dear. Looks more like a prison, don’t it?’

  I agreed with him. There was a wall seven feet high all along one side of the street that led to the hospital gate, and the gate itself was iron and had spikes on the top. The truth was, of course, as I told myself, this hospital had once been a workhouse infirmary, and the paupers had had to be kept in by force.

  As I walked across the courtyard past the dull, dirty windows of two empty wards, I thought back to my arrival at the training school two and a half years ago. Never in the whole of my training had I felt so near throwing up my career. This, I thought, is what people meant when they warned me against the horrors of nursing. And how right they were!

  But they ‒ and I ‒ were utterly wrong. The ward to which I was assigned contained eight beds, and it was the gayest ward on which I had ever worked. The brightest spots were the four Teddy girls from the East End of London. Their combined ages were under eighty years; one was seriously ill, two moderately so, and the fourth, Lois, on the point of being discharged.

  The four girls set the tone, but the elder women, if quieter, were just as cheerful. Christian names were the rule for everyone, and no nurse was ever called ‘Nurse’.

  The girls spent an average of an hour a day on making-up their faces; they all had an array of bottles and pots and brushes that half-filled their lockers. They were always having home-perm and hair-dyeing sessions. The natural colour of their hair ranged from light to dark brown; curiously, none of them dyed it blonde. Black was the popular colour, and the cut was that usually known as a ‘Tony Curtis’.

  The two least serious cases, Lois and Barbara, had beds next to each other, and the wall between their beds and above them was covered with male pin-up pictures, mostly cut from film weeklies. They were always discussing their latest heart-throbs.

  ‘He’s a smasher.’

  ‘Oh, but you should see mine. Isn’t he a real smasher?’

  They took nothing seriously, certainly not their illnesses; not ev
en their appearances.

  ‘How do I look, Barb? I’m trying the Doe-eyed look this morning. Knocks you back, don’t it?’

  ‘Oh, you look rahther luverly, dahling. Just too-too I should say.’

  There was no contact with the male wards, as owing, it is said, to their sex glands being over-active, male tuberculosis patients are usually nursed by men. But the block being L-shaped, Lois and Barbara could see the windows of the male ward, and they used to signal to distant males with their hand mirrors, and receive ardent flashes in reply.

  The unit was staffed largely by doctors who had once had the disease, or in whom it was still active. The houseman was a Polish refugee who had bilateral disease of the lungs. His prognosis was a couple of years; he was cheerful, kindly, and an excellent doctor. Most of the visiting surgeons had had the disease.

  The biologist was a tall, thin man of thirty; he worked alone in his laboratory, and if one went in for any purpose, he would detain one with a long account of his latest work, and show one slides under the microscope. He was intensely interested in the disease in an impersonal way; he did not seem to think about its progress in his own body. Yet he had tuberculosis of the kidneys as well as the lungs, and his prognosis was practically nil.

  As the biologist worked alone, during his off-duty periods he was always on call. One week-end he was urgently needed and telephoned for; there was no reply from his house and a messenger was sent to find him. Eventually he was traced to the common, where he was found flying a kite with his small daughter.

  I said to Phyllis, who had by now joined me on the ward: ‘I wonder if I should fly kites if I knew I should be dead in a month or two.’

  ‘Of course you would,’ said Phyllis. ‘People can adapt themselves to anything.’

  I thought of our old dog at home, too ill to come out for walks, still tottering out into the sun every day, and still growling angrily at the postman. If one is sensible ‒ and has the guts ‒ one goes on playing as well as working, as long as one can, I supposed.

  Authorities differ about the treatment of tuberculosis of the lung. The usual operation consists in the collapse of one lung, or of a lobe of it, to give it a chance to rest and heal. While it is generally agreed that patients must have a long period of rest before an operation, opinions as to the amount of time to be spent in bed afterwards vary considerably. In our hospital we allowed a patient who was progressing favourably to get up for a few moments in about three weeks after an operation. A few weeks later she would be allowed up to wash; next she would have a daily hour out of bed, then two hours, then three and so on. After about three months patients were often discharged, but they were still convalescent and not fit to return to work. The average time spent in hospital was about a year in all.

  In the ward the gramophone wailed continuously the latest crooner records. The records were all love-songs, and though there was a large selection, as usually on visiting days someone’s friends brought a new one, there was a certain monotony in the sounds coming from A Ward. The gramophone, too, was not of the newest type or the best tone, it had to be wound up frequently and the record changed; this duty was undertaken by the girls in turn, or by one of them who was out of bed, or by any passing nurse.

  On April Fool’s Day, Phyllis and I went into the ward towards the end of the girls’ first rest period, just before midday. Lois was asleep and Barbara dozing; we shook them and woke them up and told them they had to get up and go and be X-rayed. When they were thoroughly roused and in their dressing-gowns, we informed them that they were April Fools.

  Phyllis, going in half an hour later with cutlery to lay the lunch trays, found herself suddenly seized, rolled in a counter-pane and sat upon. Lois then rubbed lipstick all over her face.

  ‘Now we’ll put her outside to air,’ they said, and three of them dragged her to the balcony.

  She was still struggling out of the wrappings when I appeared at the door.

  ‘Here she is, Barb!’ cried Lois, and they fell upon me.

  ‘She needs a good wash,’ said Lois. ‘Come on, let’s put old Jane under the tap!’

  Protesting weakly, I was hurried to the bathroom, where my shoes were removed and I was pushed into the bath, the taps being turned on and my stockinged feet thoroughly wetted.

  Later that day, Phyllis and I both being in the linen cupboard at the same moment, they turned the key on us. We stayed there, shouting and banging, till to everyone’s horror, Sister heard the noise and came to release us, and sent us chidingly about our business.

  Sister was very forbearing, but if she had not been away on holiday, Lois’s great twenty-first birthday party would not have taken place. On the day of the birthday her father, a stocky, rough bus conductor and her mother, small, gay and perky, arrived loaded with baskets and bags containing food and presents. There was a chicken, sliced ham, salad, rolls and butter, jellies, fruit salad and cream, a magnificent cake with a gold key on the icing, a bottle of gin, fruit squash, and several boxes of sweets and chocolates. They had also brought Lois a gold wrist-watch, and her best boyfriend, a fitter who wore tight Edwardian trousers and a bootlace tie, had sent diamanté ear-clips the size of half-crowns.

  The girls stayed in bed all that day, saving up their getting-up time till seven o’clock in the evening. Then they came down to the patients’ common-room, a large room on the floor below, where there was a television set, comfortable chairs, and a piano. The long table was set out with coloured china lent by Lois’s parents, and every other inch of the surface was loaded with food and drink.

  Lois, snub-nosed and flushed beneath her make-up, with bright grey eyes and a full, pillar-box red mouth in a wide grin, sat, wearing her new wrist-watch and sparkling ear-clips, at the head of the table, as happy as a queen. Staff Nurse sat at the other end, and down the sides were ranged alternately nurses and patients. Everyone ate enormously, and after the first two gin and oranges we were all as merry as Lois. Conversation was carried on mostly in the catchphrases current in the ward at the time, many of which had been introduced by television comedians.

  ‘Oh, you Filfy Creature!’

  ‘It’s just too ‒ too luverly!’

  ‘Bettah and bettah, Mister Jenkins!’

  After we had all eaten and drunk till we nearly burst, one of the girls played the piano and we sang for a bit. Then we sat round talking and laughing, quite entertained enough without having to turn on the T.V., till at last Staff Nurse got tough and sent all the patients to bed.

  I really cried when my three months came to an end and I left Marley. On my last evening I went round saying good-bye to them all. Lois, who was due out in a week, promised to get seats for the great American crooner at the Palladium and to take me with her. Barbara threw her arms round my neck and embraced me. The quietest of the four, Pauline, called me over and presented me with a magnificent Panda with two black eyes and four black legs, which she had been making for weeks for occupational therapy.

  ‘I thought he’d remind you of us, Jane,’ she said.

  He did, because like them he was silly and lovable.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Night duty came round soon after I returned to the London hospital, and I was put in charge of the female Eye Ward, with one junior under me.

  A few weeks later came the great day when the Queen was due back from her Australian tour. Mary and I and Phyllis were determined to see her, and three others of our set, also on night duty, agreed to come with us. We decided the Pool of London would be the best vantage point.

  That morning we did not go to bed at all after coming off duty. Dressed in our outside uniforms, we made our way to the river; it was terribly crowded on the bank, and we went up on to London Bridge. Here we stood for a time, and managed to get a few glimpses of the Britannia as she came in to anchor. The crowd was thickening every minute, and it was more and more difficult to see.

  ‘Wouldn’t we get a good view,’ said Mary wistfully, ‘if we were down on the wharf?’


  ‘Let’s try and get down there,’ said Phyllis.

  We went down to the wharf. The wharf officer was sitting in his hut by the gate.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Phyllis, addressing him soulfully, ‘there’s no chance of seeing the Britannia close to, is there?’

  The man looked us over suspiciously. Phyllis added: ‘We’re on night duty, and we waited up today to have a glimpse, and we’re all so short we can’t see over people’s heads.’

  ‘All right,’ said the man with a sudden grin. ‘Scarper.’

  We thanked him and rushed through the gate. We picked our way over ropes and planks and odds and ends, and eventually got to the river side. Here several ships were tied up, and they completely blocked our view.

  ‘Golly ‒ if we could get on one of those!’ said Mary. ‘We could see beautifully then!’

  ‘We can but try,’ I said.

  ‘Of course we can,’ said Phyllis, and she began to march up the gang plank of the nearest.

  A man in officer’s uniform appeared. ‘We’ve come to see the Queen,’ said Phyllis, in rather a small voice.

  ‘Oh!’ The man seemed rather taken aback. ‘Well,’ he added, ‘I expect you’re hungry, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, yes, we are actually,’ replied Phyllis spiritedly.

  ‘We’ve got a sort of party on down below,’ he said. ‘Won’t you join us? I’m the Captain,’ he explained apologetically.

  The Captain leading the way, we trooped below decks. We entered a room which had a long central table; this was groaning under the weight of a colossal buffet meal. Standing round it, eating and drinking, were several elegant women and smart naval officers, with some prosperous-looking businessmen as well.

  The Captain helped us each to a plateful of food. To a man who came up he said vaguely: ‘These are some nurses. They’ve ‒ er ‒ come to see the Queen.’

  The man recovered admirably as we grinned at him, and asked us to have a drink. Drinks procured, he asked us which hospital we came from.