The Midwife's Here!: The Enchanting True Story of One of Britain's Longest Serving Midwives

by Linda Fairley

  ‘Congratulations, Nurse Lawton,’ Miss Bell said, shaking my hand when it was finally my turn to step up to her desk. I smiled broadly as she handed me my shining penny. ‘You have worked hard. Well done!’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you for …’

  ‘No need to thank me,’ she interrupted briskly. ‘You have done this. Good luck!’

  The next stop was the sewing room where we all eagerly claimed a brand new green belt that fastened with Velcro around our waists, and finally got our hands on two white ‘strings’ each. A home sister showed us how to attach the strings to our hats using white kirby grips before securing them correctly in a neat bow under the chin.

  ‘I can’t move in this!’ Jo complained, pulling open her too-tight bow as we huddled in a corner to practise.

  ‘I know, this is such a nuisance,’ Anne niggled as her strings disappeared into a fold underneath her generous chin. ‘Wearing these makes you feel like a puppet!’

  With that she jerked her head from side to side, as if an invisible puppeteer were manoeuvring her. ‘Thunderbirds are GO!’ she mocked. ‘Or should that be MRI nurses are GO?’

  ‘Yes m’Lady!’ Jo retorted jokily, though she was still struggling with her bow and pulling a disgruntled face.

  Nessa and I exchanged knowing glances. For all their moaning, we both knew that Anne and Jo were tickled pink, just as we were. We’d made it, and at long last we were in the clique. As Sister Mary Francis might say, we weren’t just nurses; we were MRI nurses, no less!

  ‘Does anybody know how Cynthia is getting on?’ Anne asked as we strode out of the sewing room in our new attire, shoulders back and heads held high.

  ‘Do you know, you read my mind,’ I replied. ‘I was just thinking about Cynthia. I went to see her a few days ago. She was sitting up in bed, knitting a scarf and looking very pale, but her operation has been a great success. She told me she’s very pleased for us all for passing our exams, and not to worry about her. She’s going to catch up next year, so she’ll soon get her penny.’

  ‘Good for her,’ Jo said. ‘I’m not sure I’d have managed to carry on if I were in her shoes.’

  We all nodded in agreement. ‘She’s remarkable,’ I said. I’d learned that the reason Cynthia stitched all her own clothes by hand was because she came from a very poor family and her mother couldn’t afford to buy a sewing machine, let alone new clothes. I’d admired Cynthia’s tenacity, even before she became ill.

  I couldn’t help wondering how Janice was getting on, wherever she was, not to mention Linda, who had only written once since her departure, with very little news. Thinking about them both, as well as Cynthia, made me count my blessings. I touched my penny and said a silent little prayer, thanking God for the life I had.

  Within weeks I learned that my application to become a pupil midwife at Ashton General had been processed and I was to attend an interview in early December. Should I secure the position, I would start on 1 January 1970 and I would earn £100 a month. This sounded like a fortune compared to my current salary, although of course I was used to having my accommodation fees deducted at source, so in reality it wasn’t as huge an increase as it seemed. In any case, I was far more interested in the position than the salary, and I was incredibly excited to be one step closer to achieving my ambition.

  Everything was happening so fast. My heart was packed with emotions, and I took out my diary and unloaded some of my feelings onto its pages.

  ‘Life is changing,’ I wrote, under the date 28 September 1969.

  It seems a lifetime ago that I arrived at the MRI, frightened and homesick, yet it also seems like only yesterday when I first put on my nurse’s uniform. Isn’t that strange? Am I ready to train to become a midwife? Yes, I am! I will miss my friends here, but I am ready to leave now. I can’t wait to get married – and I really want to be a pupil midwife!!

  Graham and I married on 22 November 1969 at St Michael and All Angels Church in Ashton. Being so close to finally finishing at the MRI really put an extra shine on my day. Seeing Graham standing at the altar waiting for me, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. In that moment, I had it all. Not only was I marrying my handsome soulmate, but I had a wonderful career at my fingertips. Any doubts that I might not be accepted as a pupil midwife left me that day and I was filled with optimism about my future, or our future, as it now was.

  My old school friend Sue, by now a qualified teacher, was my bridesmaid, along with Graham’s teenage sister, Barbara. It was a very cold day and they shivered in their deep turquoise dresses as they attended to my gown at the back of the church, making sure my long veil and train were sitting just so. I felt the high lace collar snug around my neck as I swallowed deeply, savouring the moment when Dad took my arm and began to walk me slowly towards my husband to be.

  I could almost feel myself growing up just that little bit more as I took each step towards Graham. My head was held high and my heartbeat was steady and strong, secure in the knowledge I was making my parents proud, and making my way successfully in the world.

  I remember feeling giddy with happiness when the Church of England minister declared us man and wife, and I also recall being delighted it didn’t rain as we made our way to the local Masonic Hall for our wedding reception.

  My mum had made most of the arrangements, and the majority of the fifty invited guests were long-standing family friends and relatives. I didn’t ask any of my nursing friends, as this part of my life seemed so separate from my working life. Besides, in those days it wasn’t really the done thing to have a big knees-up with your peers.

  We ate minestrone soup with a warm roll and a curl of butter, followed by roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with thick gravy, and rounded off with lemon meringue pie. Afterwards Mrs Cox, one of my parents’ friends who frequently came to our house to play cards, played the piano and sang loudly, which encouraged several couples to shuffle around the dance floor to tunes like ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ by Frankie Valli and ‘Green, Green Grass of Home’ by Tom Jones.

  ‘Congratulations on becoming Mrs Linda Buckley,’ an elderly colleague of my father’s said jovially as he chinked my glass of champagne and admired my gleaming wedding band. ‘Tell me, are you going to give up work now you’re a newly married lady?’

  I burst out laughing. ‘Certainly not,’ I replied. ‘I’m planning to train as a midwife!’

  ‘Good heavens!’ he remarked in mock surprise. ‘In my day women had babies themselves when they got married, they didn’t set about delivering other people’s!’

  ‘It’s very nearly 1970 and, luckily for me, times have changed!’ I responded with amusement.

  It was one of those moments when the words that come out of your mouth strike an unexpected chord. This one resonated throughout my whole body. There I was, dressed in my beautiful wedding gown with my new husband looking resplendent across the room in his dark grey morning suit, chatting contentedly to our guests. Our new home was ready for us to move in to and there, sitting tantalisingly in a mahogany letter rack on our new hall table, lay the key to my future: the all-important letter detailing my imminent interview at Ashton General Hospital. I felt very fortunate indeed.

  Graham and I would have children one day, I hoped. We’d discussed it before we married, of course, and had agreed we’d like to start a family in a few years. I was twenty-one and he was twenty, so we had time on our side. I imagined we’d be in our mid-twenties when we became parents; that sounded about right. For the time being Graham was ploughing all his money into his business, Buckley Vending Supplies, and we still had plenty of work to do on our new home. We were in no rush to become parents, and we would take precautions for the time being.

  When Graham carried me over the threshold and took me to bed for the first time, I pictured all my doubts and fears falling away, scattering and disappearing into the confetti-sprinkled carpet. We had a short honeymoon in York, chosen as I could only get a week off work and it wasn’t to
o far to travel, or too expensive. One of the highlights for me was visiting York Minster, which brought back fond memories of being at my convent school. When you have been educated by nuns I don’t think their influence ever leaves you. I recall sitting quietly in a pew at the back beside Graham and feeling deeply peaceful and very happy. If God was guiding me, I was pleased with where He had brought me so far in my life. I was where I wanted to be, and I felt thankful. To this day, though I am not a regular churchgoer, I still believe in God and am comforted by the thought He may be up there somewhere, watching over me and my patients.

  Back at the MRI the week after our honeymoon I was once again called to Miss Bell’s office, where I was handed my MRI certificate. This was the final certificate, and the one I had been waiting for. It officially recognised that, as well as being an SRN, I was an MRI nurse too. I had looked forward to this day, and I studied the certificate with immense pride in my heart.

  Emblazoned with the words ‘United Manchester Hospitals School of Nursing’ the certificate proclaimed in elaborate script:

  This Certificate is awarded to Linda Mary Lawton for efficiency in Medical and Surgical Nursing as proved by work done in the wards over a period of three years and three months and after examination.

  It was signed by both the Chairman of the Board of Governors and the Chairman of the Medical Executive Committee, as well as Constance Biddulph, the Principal of United Manchester Hospitals School of Nursing. The date on the bottom was 5 December 1969. My three years and three months of training and work at the MRI slipped into the past, right there. What mattered now was using this piece of paper to set me on the road to carving out a future for myself as a midwife.

  I couldn’t wait to get home, see Graham and show him my longed-for certificate. My journey back seemed to take forever, as since moving into our new home together I’d taken to travelling in and out of Manchester by bus. It was far from ideal, and each day involved a lot of messing about. I had to leave the house more than an hour before my shift started in the morning, and on the return journey I often had to change buses and wait around in the cold, shivering under my NHS gabardine. I never thought I’d say it, but living in the nurses’ home had been a godsend in many ways. As a student I would never have coped with a daily commute on top of everything else, and the thought of applying to St Mary’s should I fail to secure a place at Ashton now seemed completely untenable.

  I was exhausted when I finally put my key in the door, and I almost fell onto the burgundy floral carpet in our hallway that evening.

  ‘How’s my little nurse?’ Graham called jovially. He was sitting on one of our dark red Draylon-covered bowl-shaped armchairs, drinking a mug of steaming tea and watching Dad’s Army on our small Rediffusion television. Our new budgerigar, whom we’d named Billy Buckley, flapped around his cage in the corner of the room, and a gold-coloured carriage clock we’d received as a wedding present, which now took pride of place on the brick mantelpiece, told me it was just gone 7.30 p.m. That meant I’d been out of the house for almost thirteen hours.

  ‘Tired!’ I said, an image of Jo, Anne and Nessa flashing through my mind. They’d waved to me at the bus stop more than an hour earlier, having eaten together in the dining room before heading to their flat. They’d have been home by 6.30 p.m. at the latest, I reckoned.

  ‘I’d have picked you up after work, you know, if you’d let me.’

  ‘I know, but I can’t expect you to do that every night, and you have your own job to do without running around after me …’

  ‘I was thinking,’ Graham said. ‘My business is going well and we can afford to buy a few new things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘A colour television?’ he smiled, looking at me hopefully.

  This didn’t excite me in the least and I told him so, rather begrudgingly. I rarely had time to watch television, let alone worry about whether I was watching in black and white or colour. Besides, we didn’t have any savings after the expense of buying our first home, and only the week before I’d gratefully accepted my mum’s offer that she would buy our Christmas turkey for us.

  I made my way down the hall to the kitchen, ready to start cooking the dinner, thinking that I wasn’t very impressed with this set-up. I had my interview at Ashton in a few days and I felt worn out, but I accepted that now I was a wife it was my duty to cook for my new husband, whatever time I got in from work.

  ‘There’s a wimberry pie for pudding,’ Graham called after me. ‘Your mum dropped it in earlier.’

  I pushed open the kitchen door, stopped and gaped. There in front of me, glinting in the middle of the lino, was a shiny grey Honda 50 moped.

  ‘Like it?’ Graham asked, looming behind me and spinning me round so he could see the surprised look in my eye.

  ‘Oh yes!’ I grinned. ‘Is it for me? It’s absolutely brilliant!’

  ‘Thought you would. You don’t need to take lessons or a test, just wear “L” plates. It’s very easy to ride. I thought it would help you get around.’

  He had splashed out £26 on it, and I was beyond thrilled. ‘I really hope I get that job,’ I said. ‘Just think, I could scoot to work in no time at all. Thank you, Graham! Thank you so much!’

  ‘What about a colour TV as well …?” he asked, but I could tell from the mischievous look on his face he was only teasing me with that one.

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘We’ve barely got enough furniture yet! You’ve really spoiled me, Graham. You couldn’t have got me anything better.’ It was too late to venture out that night and I was tired out anyhow, but I really looked forward to trying it out the next morning.

  When the day of my interview finally arrived I tried to play it cool, even though I was flapping around the house more than Billy Buckley in his cage.

  ‘Are you nervous?’ Graham asked as I fixed and re-fixed my hair in a bun and charged up and down the stairs with different coats, seeing which one looked best over my smart navy-blue skirt, pressed blouse and fine-knit cardigan.

  ‘Not really,’ I fibbed. ‘I know I stand a good chance of getting this post. I’ve got the right qualifications and there’s a place for me if they think I can do it. It’s not as if hundreds of people are fighting over the job.’

  All this was true, but of course there were no guarantees. I still had to impress Miss Sefton. She had the power to end my dream this very day. I had to prove I was right for this role, and that I wanted it with all my heart.

  In the event, my interview turned out to be a breeze, after Mrs Ingham appeared unexpectedly and introduced me enthusiastically to the interview panel as ‘my little obstetric nurse’. I discovered Mrs Ingham was an occasional visiting tutor at Ashton’s Maternity Unit, giving lectures to pupil midwives. I really hoped I’d be in her class one day.

  To my relief, Miss Sefton, Head of Midwifery, and Miss O’Neil, Deputy Head of Midwifery, both followed Mrs Ingham’s lead, welcoming me so warmly I felt as if I were practically one of the family.

  Miss Sefton was small and smartly dressed in a burgundy dress with a mandarin collar. She pursed her lips as she spoke, which made her look strict and posh, but she was also very friendly, even congratulating me on my marriage. Miss O’Neil was younger and dressed in a grey uniform, and she too seemed very pleasant. Compared to meeting Miss Morgan at the MRI, it was as easy as pie.

  Despite the convivial atmosphere, I still sat bolt upright throughout the interview and took care to speak clearly and give sensible, considered answers. It wasn’t difficult, as most questions were about whether or not I was happy to do shift work, attend lectures outside working hours and do night duty – all of which I expected and was perfectly willing to agree to.

  At the end of the questioning Miss Sefton announced that she would like to offer me a position as a pupil midwife, and that a letter would be in the post. She then went on to give details of pay, holidays and so forth, which I was too overwhelmed to take in fully.

  ‘Thank you!’ I beamed as all thre
e women bid me a cheerful goodbye.

  I could scarcely believe it, and I don’t think I really did until a formal letter arrived in the post a week later, officially offering me the position of pupil midwife. To say it was a dream come true is an understatement; I was beside myself with happiness and brimming with anticipation. I was actually going to train as a midwife. Me, Linda Buckley! Imagine that! What’s more, now I could relax a little and enjoy my last few weeks at the MRI.

  With Christmas just around the corner, the hospital was all decked out with tinsel and paper chains. There was always a competition for the best-decorated ward, and the sisters took tremendous pride in striving to make theirs the winner. On Christmas Day itself, the consultant always carved the turkey on the ward, and the registrar would dress as Santa. The lights were dimmed when carol singers visited, and the patients usually joined in with hymns, singing from their beds.

  We always tried to get as many patients as possible home for Christmas Day, though past experience taught me that many preferred to stay in hospital, especially if they had nobody at home to share the day with. I’d worked the past three Christmases, and I always said it was the only day of the year you could let yourself go at the MRI, if only just a little bit.

  This year, I had the misfortune of working for Sister Bridie, who appeared to be the only member of staff in the entire hospital not to have joined in the Christmas spirit. For a start, she was the only one not to have attached a piece of tinsel or sprig of holly to her uniform.

  ‘Lawton, see to Mrs Strongintharm,’ she ordered, her voice pitted with irritation and sounding more shrill and Irish than ever. I considered asking her to call me Buckley now I was married, but decided it wasn’t worth the bother.

  I’d never heard the name ‘Strongintharm’ before, but this was indeed the lady’s name. Mrs Strongintharm was sitting up in bed, merrily singing ‘Jingle Bells’ out of tune, at the top of her voice. Her jolly disposition was totally at odds with the dismal din blasting from her lips. The woman in the next bed was complaining, ‘Ooh for heaven’s sake, put a sock in it, Mrs S!’ but Mrs Strongintharm was too busy enjoying herself to listen, and carried on regardless.