The Country Nurse Remembers

by Mary J. Macleod

  We had to learn the names of various bits of theatre equipment so that we could run for it when required. We cleared up after one op, washed everything down ready for the next and prepared the sterile drums of swabs and bandages. It was a very busy life, but I had the chance to watch various surgeons at work and observe the sort of thing that the scrub nurse did. How I aspired to be a scrub nurse!

  Much later, after I had finished my training and moved to London, I became a Theatre Staff Nurse for a time. The theatre was at the top of a very old building. One day, I was the scrub nurse assigned to assist an eminent brain surgeon, and we were operating on the brain of a seven-month-old baby who had encephalitis, which used to be known as ‘water on the brain’. Gradually, we became aware of the blare of fire engines’ sirens and the smell of smoke. I instructed my ‘runner’ to go to see what was going on. On his return (a male nurse this time) he told us that the fire was in the lower part of the hospital and ambulances were evacuating patients from all the wards.

  The surgeon listened and carried on with the operation.

  ‘We can’t stop now. We will carry on for as long as possible. Any unnecessary staff can leave now,’ he said, but no one did.

  We all knew that the baby would die on the table if we stopped the surgery, so I ordered the fire doors to be closed and from time to time sent the runner to see how the fire was progressing. More and more fire engines and ambulances were arriving, but gradually the fire was brought under control, and at least some of the patients returned to their wards. The eight-hour operation continued as though nothing had happened. I was so very impressed with the selfless dedication of the team and the cool-headedness of the surgeon to be able to do this most tricky procedure on a tiny child with fire raging on the floors below. Such is the nature of theatre work that one only occasionally knows the eventual outcome of the surgery. The patient would be whisked off to a ward, would recover from the surgery and be discharged. Only very occasionally would we, the theatre nurses and technicians, happen to hear if he had lived or died. The surgeon would check up in the few hours after surgery and again at a follow-up appointment in Outpatients. The theatres were hectically busy, with no time for anything except the actual surgery and certainly none for following a patient’s progress after operation.

  It would be nice to say that the baby survived and lived on, but I do not know.

  We found that every time we came back to the nurses’ home from the night nurses’ accommodation, we were given different rooms. Although I had been told that only new nurses had to share a room, there had been such an influx of new staff that we were still sharing into the second year.

  Now, I was in a very large room with three other nurses; all second years. Not surprisingly, Anna had left. This made her ill, that gave her a rash, something else gave her nightmares and so on. The final straw was when she was sure she had TB and Matron suggested that nursing was not the career for her. I do not remember where Natalie went, but she too seemed to disappear.

  Margaret was in the next bed to me at the end of the room, and we had some good laughs and giggles. The other two girls were Plymouth Brethren. They prayed on their knees every night, they never listened to music, never swore (although the rest of us were pretty restrained), never wore make-up or talked about boys, only read the Bible or religious or nursing books and never seemed to go anywhere in off-duty time.

  Della was tall and dark and very uncommunicative, but Cecilia (named after the patron saint of music) talked to us when she realised that we were interested in her faith. I don’t think we understood why that faith was so repressive, but she was a good nurse and a gentle person and we respected her. But soon she amazed us all.

  One day, the Dragon knocked on the door during the afternoon. Cecilia and I were off duty and reading.

  ‘Someone to see you in the front ’all, Nurse Branden. A gent.’

  Cecilia looked surprised. I was amazed. Normally, we were not supposed to have callers and certainly not ‘gents’.

  When she returned, she mentioned that it was her cousin, who had come to see if she would go out the following day. She had agreed to do so.

  Our window overlooked Tyrell Street, so Margaret and I, being nosy, watched when Cecilia left the room. She was dressed sensibly with no high heels, no make-up and lisle stockings instead of the nylons for which the rest of us almost sold our souls (tights did not appear until the 1970s). There in the street was a red sports car, with a tall, handsome but far from stylish young man at the wheel.

  In the following two or three weeks, Cecilia went out with him about four times: always in the daytime, always in the car and always returning completely composed.

  ‘Nothing in it,’ prophesied Margaret.

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘She isn’t the slightest bit excited.’

  But we were wrong. The cousin, whom she had known from childhood but who had gone away for work, was now back with the extended Brethren family that ran a huge farming complex. He was ‘courting’ her in the old-fashioned way, having spoken to her father sometime previously to ask his permission to take her out and then to ask her to marry him.

  The actual proposal happened in the bosom of the family on one of her days off, and she returned, still composed, wearing an engagement ring with a huge diamond in it. She put this away, and we only saw it if she was going out with the young man—most of us would have worn such a thing at every opportunity… though not on duty, of course.

  One day, Margaret and I returned to the room to find Cecilia’s bed neatly made, her chest of drawers empty and her case packed.

  ‘I was just waiting to say goodbye,’ she said. ‘I am needed at home, so I shall not finish my training. I am to be married next Sunday.’ She smiled at our amazed faces and was gone.

  We later heard that his family had given them a house on the estate farm and her family had furnished it. They started a family immediately themselves and had six children in as many years.

  Sick Nurses

  I was on the ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) ward for the second time, and for the second time I developed tonsillitis. I was placed at the end of the nurses’ sick bay, far enough away from other nurse patients not to infect them. I received various treatments, which included a thick yellow penicillin intramuscular injection, which I now appreciated was just as painful as my patients said it was!

  I recovered quickly on both occasions, but during my illness it was discovered that my sinuses were blocked. They were washed out (not a comfortable procedure), and suddenly the world became a noisier place; I could hear exactly what was being said all the time. So I had been a bit deaf, after all!

  I was appalled to see three nurses with poliomyelitis at the opposite end of the room. Polio was rife in the early 1950s and was a constant hazard until the Salk vaccine was introduced in 1955. As a result of this and subsequent vaccines (such as the Sabin), polio is only found in India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan today.

  Nurses were particularly at risk because the organism is passed from person to person or is present in faecal matter. Before the introduction of automatic bedpan washers, nurses had to clean these receptacles by hand. With all the hand-washing in the world, there was still a considerable risk of contamination.

  Two of the nurses were in the fever stage of polio: no one knew how much damage the virus had done and therefore how much paralysis would be caused. The third nurse was in an ‘iron lung’, as she was paralysed from the neck down. She could speak, see and hear, but the lung did the breathing for her. She was fed through a tube and given water the same way. A mirror was attached to the head end of the lung so that she could see what was going on around her. Cheerful and giggly, she was the star nurse patient of the era, but we all knew that her fragile body could not withstand for much longer the frequent infections to which she was prone. She died when I was in my third year. One of many sad cases at that time.

  Ham Green

  Out on a windy promontory overlooking the Severn Es
tuary near Avonmouth was a sprawling fevers and TB hospital called Ham Green. This sanitorium, or isolation hospital, was not really part of the Bristol Royal Hospital group, but it was in some way affiliated to it. Here were the patients with tuberculosis of the lungs, kidneys and other unusual locations, such as glands, and also those with rheumatic fever (or acute rheumatism), diphtheria, tropical diseases and polio. There was also a ward for smallpox sufferers. Situated by itself and fenced off, it was located some distance from all the others. While I was at Ham Green we did not have a case of smallpox, but it was not unknown for it to be brought in by returning troops or others from countries where that terrible disease was still rife. I was in the Middle East in the 1960s when smallpox raged through several nearby Arab villages almost yearly, killing countless people, mostly children. Widespread immunisation has now eradicated this terrible disease throughout the globe.

  The other wards were also separated by large grassy areas with narrow tarmac paths, and there was a nurses’ home, still with rules and regulations but at least there was no Dragon here.

  When I went home for the first time after starting at Ham Green, I went to see Grandma, Granddad and Auntie Lizzy. When I told Auntie that the wards were so far apart that many of the nurses and doctors used bicycles to get around, she immediately offered to buy me a bicycle. This was a lovely surprise, and the following week a Ladies Raleigh was waiting for me. The problem was that I had never ridden a bicycle and I had just a day and a half to learn!

  I rode it back as far as the nurses’ home in Tyrell Street, where I left it until my next day off, when I rode it the rest of the way. It made such a difference, not only getting to and from the wards, but also joining others on outings to nearby villages, including a little place called ‘Pill’. Rather appropriate, I thought.

  I was on the men’s TB block. The treatment for TB was lengthy and the outcome uncertain in the days before antibiotics; it was based on rest, fresh air and a high-protein diet, and the patients were kept on bed rest for months. The TB block was made up of open-fronted cubicles. The head of the bed was against the back wall, and there were flimsy, movable walls on either side; the open front could be covered by a huge glass window, but this happened so rarely that most were rusty and unusable. In cold weather, the patients were tucked up beneath quantities of blankets, dressed in warm clothes and even gloves and woolly hats, and they looked out at the world of grass, trees, wind, rain and sometimes even snow. When it snowed, we covered the foot of the beds with a large, thick red waterproof rubber sheet and brushed the accumulated snow off from time to time. If this sounds amazing—it was! And we, the nurses, were still in our short-sleeved cotton dresses. It was surprising how many jumpers we could get underneath. But many patients owed their lives to such Draconian treatment.

  In the case of children (and sadly there were many), the movable walls between the beds were rearranged so that two or more could be together. It seems incredible that so long as the patients were not too ill, they had fun. There was no tidy bed rule here, and models (complete with glue) were made; games, books, magazines and comics, colouring and sketching pencils and pads were in evidence daily. Even balls were allowed and were thrown to and fro, it being considered great fun if they managed to hit a nurse. They scored even higher if it was a Sister!

  If the child was fit enough to have lessons, a teacher would gather some beds together (or rather we would), and a fairly relaxed and merry class would ensue. All staff, and that included the teacher, wore gowns and masks for any close contact treatment or prolonged exposure to the patients, which meant that in theory the teacher had to teach with a face mask on. Of course, it was only popped on when officials from the local Education Department came round. Everyone had been immunised against TB of course, but, even so, we ran ridiculous risks.

  We had also been immunised against typhoid fever. This procedure involved two injections a week apart, the first being about half the strength of the second. Unfortunately, the young doctor assigned to this task happened to get the doses the wrong way round when I was due for mine. With a group of eleven other nurses, I was given the first dose, and, having been given the morning off, we all went into town. By midday, a fleet of ambulances had brought us back from all over Bristol—where many of us had collapsed or fainted. We all ended up in a row in makeshift beds in the sick bay. I felt about as ill as I ever remember feeling.

  There was much consternation, and great minds at high level were consulted, but about twelve hours later we all began to feel part of the real world of our own accord.

  The big problem then was what to do about the second injection: should the strength of this match the suggested first dose or should it be a repeat of the second? Whichever was chosen, I do not remember feeling so ill, so I think they must have given the lesser one.

  We all had enormously swollen and painful arms, and it was all we could do not to screech when a patient, trying to sit up, caught hold at the spot.

  The demographics in Ham Green were so different. Apart from the children, there were many young men who had been prisoners of war in Japan. Due to the deprivation, ill treatment, poor diet and lack of medical care, many of them had contracted TB, and many had had it for a long time. They would have been treated initially in military establishments, but this was now 1951 and the war had been over for nearly six years, so the men we nursed were those who had contracted the disease near the end or even after the end of hostilities, perhaps from undiagnosed friends. With only a few exceptions, those on our block were just about cured, were feeling fitter than they had for years and were almost ready to go home. They were mostly in their late twenties, young enough to need fun and willing to egg one another on. Young nurses were much admired but also badly teased.

  It became known that I couldn’t cope with spiders. The hospital was in the country, and the spiders were large and plentiful. Usually, I managed to avoid those patients who were known for their practical jokes and would sometimes chase me down the corridor with a large, hairy wriggling spider, but one day a devious fellow pretended to have a pain in his leg. As I bent over him, with my head positioned away from my collar, I felt the tell-tale tickle down my back. I can feel the clenching of stomach muscles even now as I remember the incident. And on that occasion I actually screamed—and fainted!

  It must have been for a second only, as I heard several patients gasping, ‘Oh my God!’ Then I felt hands down my back, scrabbling about. There was a ‘You’ve got it!’ and an ‘Is she all right?’ followed more clearly as I came round by profuse and worried apologies, with much babbling about not knowing that people were really like this—not just pretending.

  Luckily for all of us the Block Sister knew nothing of this. I had no problem after that getting the culprits to tidy their beds or fetch something from the kitchen or go and shave, etc. I have to confess that I took great pleasure in these small revenges. No one so much as mentioned spiders again.

  With so many young men cooped up for months, even years, it was not surprising that some romances occurred with the nurses. This was frowned on because of the risk of infection, as well as propriety. But it happened, and they sometimes took the shape of hero (or heroine) worship.

  Jasper

  An earnest sergeant called Jasper seemed to admire me from a distance. Along with many others, he was up and about and almost ready to go home to his mother and sister. I found his devotion touching but embarrassing. I was also very worried that it was more than just the usual patient–nurse flirtation. He was not the sort to flirt. He was quiet and rather humble because he was ‘only a sergeant’, as he put it. Sure enough, the day he left, he asked me to go to tea with his family the following week. I was polite and firm in my refusal, but the entire family seemed to have come to take him home and added their entreaties. Without being very rude, I could do nothing but accept.

  The afternoon was hugely difficult. Jasper’s mother had baked cakes; an obviously new tablecloth was laid onto a small tea ta
ble in front of the fire. I was given the best armchair. His mother did not sit down at all, while his sister remained in the kitchen replenishing the teapot. He sat on the only other fireside chair, drinking cup after cup of tea, rather noisily, earning a reproving look from his mother.

  I tried to talk about the hospital, as it was a common subject, but they all listened as if I were making a speech. After a while Jasper’s mother asked about my family, so I told them about Robert and my parents.

  Eventually, I felt that I could take my leave without appearing rude. To my consternation, Jasper was preparing to accompany me to the bus stop.

  ‘I wanted them to see what a wonderful person you are,’ he said on our way. ‘Now they will see why I cannot possibly ask you to marry me.’

  I held my breath. What on earth could I say?

  He continued: ‘You see, they knew that I loved you and have been pressing me to ask you to marry me. I knew it was not right. I’m only a sergeant, and I have no job now because of the TB. I live with my mother and sister in a council house. I am about twenty years older than you, and I have nothing to offer you. So I am saying “goodbye”.’

  He was staring across the street. He did not look at me once during this speech. I was so very sorry for him. He was a really decent person.

  For once, I seemed to know how to deal with the situation.

  ‘Thank you, Jasper, for telling me all this. You are a very nice person, and I am sure some girl will make you happy one day.’

  He held onto the hand that I offered for a moment and then said, ‘The bus is coming.’

  I told Margaret all about it the next time we met. She listened with a surprised look. She had met Jasper. ‘He is not right for you, I know, but it is a shame.’ She paused and thought for a bit. Then she grinned. ‘I suppose you could say that you have had a marriage non-proposal.’