by Mary Hazard
There was a stark white ceramic sink in one corner and a small dressing table with a chair in the other. My bed had two grey woollen blankets, and a starched counterpane lay across the top. I plumped my pillow and it felt stiff and scratchy to the touch, which made me even more miserable. To make myself feel better I took my John Lennon poster from my suitcase and stuck it on the wall above my bed. I knew it was against the rules to decorate the walls but I couldn’t really see what harm it could do, and I made a mental note to be careful not to damage the paint when I took it down in the future.
‘New linen will be left outside your door once a fortnight,’ the home sister had instructed. ‘You must strip your bed and leave your dirty laundry outside your door, in your laundry bag.’
She’d given us a brisk guided tour of the nurses’ accommodation earlier. ‘There are wooden blocks fitted to the inside of all of the windows,’ she told us in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘This is to stop intruders getting in.’
Sitting on my bed that evening, I looked over at the one small rain-smeared window and felt a film of tears mask my eyes. I was used to living in relative luxury, sheltered at my private convent school and cosseted by my parents in our comfortable suburban home. This was the first time in my whole life I had felt vulnerable – afraid, even. I’d imagined that after spending a month abroad in the summer I’d be absolutely fine living in Manchester. I was less than ten miles from home, but everything here seemed so alien to me.
Sue and I had stayed at my brother’s apartment in Beirut for two fun-filled weeks. He worked for United Press International and had a wonderful lifestyle. A cleaner came in every morning while Sue and I sunned ourselves by the pool. Afterwards we met John for lunch at the plush St George’s Hotel, and in the evenings he took us to fancy parties. I remembered how he smiled when we asked for Ovaltine at bedtime on our first night. ‘Why don’t you try a gin and tonic instead?’ he suggested. We did, and we never stopped giggling for the whole holiday.
Sue and I both felt so grown-up. We booked ourselves on a three-day excursion to Jerusalem, where I bought a beautiful leather-bound bible, and then we spent two weeks holidaying in Turkey with John’s Turkish wife Nevim, who looked after us really well. I was an independent woman of the world – or so I thought.
There was a rap on my door that made me jump. ‘Can I come in?’ a lovely Scottish voice sang, and I shot up gratefully and unlatched the door.
It knew it was Linda Mochri, and her voice instantly made my tears evaporate.
‘Of course you can!’ I said, and when I opened the door I was delighted to see she had Nessa, Anne, Jo and Janice in tow.
‘Your room’s the biggest, you lucky thing!’ Linda said as she lit a Marlboro cigarette and sat cross-legged on the end of my bed. The other girls filed in and found themselves a place to sit. Nessa was last through the door and she settled on the scratched wooden floor, folding her enviably long legs beneath her.
Janice also lit a cigarette, which she pulled from a fashionable lacquered case that covered her pack of twenty. She looked confident to the point of cockiness as she took a long drag.
‘How are you all settling in, then?’ she asked, after blowing out a plume of smoke. She looked at each of us in turn.
‘Feels like we’re in the Army!’ Linda snorted. ‘Curfew at 11 p.m., girls!’ she said, mimicking the home sister’s briefing from earlier in the day. ‘Any nurses not home by 11 p.m. will have Matron to deal with and will lose the right to request a late pass! Late passes allow you to be home by midnight – but be warned, you have to earn them, girls!’
We fell about laughing and, with the ice broken, we began to gently pick over the long day we’d had.
‘What do you think of our tutor?’ Anne asked with a mischievous glint in her eye. Anne was quite plump, with one of those smiley, rosy faces larger girls often have.
We all chipped in with our views on Mr Tate, who for the first two months would teach us anatomy, physiology and basic nursing techniques in the schoolroom. After that he would continue to teach us between our practical training and placements on the wards.
‘He’s the strangest-looking man I’ve ever seen,’ I volunteered with a shy giggle.
This was no exaggeration. Everyone admitted they had been taken aback at his appearance, particularly his precarious-looking comb-over.
‘I dread to think what he looks like when the wind blows,’ chuckled Jo.
She and Janice were two of a kind, I thought. Both exuded self-confidence, while Linda and Anne were definitely the jokers in the pack. Nessa seemed more like me. She was softly spoken and came from Cheadle, not too far from where I grew up. We were the only two who didn’t smoke, and when Nessa contributed something to the conversation it usually struck a chord with me.
‘Is it just me or does anyone else think the blocks on the windows are a bit alarming?’ she ventured.
‘I hate them!’ I admitted. ‘It makes me think a mad man is going to break in at any moment.’
‘Will you listen to yerself!’ Linda mocked gently. ‘We’re holed up here like prison inmates. I reckon the blocks are there to stop us escaping rather than to stop men breaking in!’
We all laughed again.
‘What shall we dissect next?’ Anne asked.
‘Bathrooms!’ Jo and Janice chimed in unison, and we all bemoaned the fact we had one bath and toilet to share between twelve of us.
The nurses’ quarters were shaped like a letter ‘H’ and my new-found friends and I were grouped together down one leg of the ‘H’. It was pot-luck that I got the biggest room. We were all allocated a number and I happened to be student nurse number six, which meant I was allocated the sixth room on the corridor.
‘It’s certainly not what I’m used to,’ Anne said wistfully, and we shared snippets of our lives back home.
With the exception of Linda Mochri we had all grown up in the region. Linda’s family had relocated from Scotland because her mother was ill with cancer, and the best treatment was available to her in the North West of England. Apart from that, we seemed to have a fair amount in common, all having come from good schools and supportive families. I learned that Linda, Jo and Janice had long-term boyfriends like me, but Nessa and Anne did not.
‘This is certainly a far cry from what any of us are used to,’ Janice declared, wrinkling up her nose.
I couldn’t have agreed more. As a child I moved house frequently, always to somewhere bigger and better as Lawton’s Confectioners went from strength to strength. My parents sold teacakes, puff pastries, parkin, pies, bread and apple tarts from their double-fronted shop on the High Street in Stalybridge, all hand-made in the bake-house by my father, John.
He was a gentleman who ‘never wanted to be on the front row’, as my mother Lillian often said. That was absolutely true. You couldn’t have met a kinder or more unassuming man, and he never once so much as raised his voice to me. My mother wore the trousers in their relationship and was also the one who controlled the business, but that didn’t stop her being a very kind and caring mum.
My brother John and I wanted for absolutely nothing. The fine career in journalism he’d carved out for himself made both my parents very proud and the two of us were the apples of our parents’ eyes, in our own distinct ways.
I shared a little bit about my family background with the other girls, and also told them about Graham, who I’d been going out with for about a year.
‘I love dancing and we met at the Palais in Ashton last year when I went to a dance with my old school friend Sue,’ I told them. ‘He works as a car salesman and drives a little blue bubble car.’
‘Lucky you! Is he good-looking?’ Janice asked cheekily.
‘Well, I think so,’ I blushed. ‘He’s got blond hair and blue eyes and wears very nice clothes.’
‘Ooooh!’ Anne chucked. ‘I’m jealous!’
‘Come on!’ Jo said, sparing me any further interrogation as she stood up and stubbed out her cigarette in
my sink, having failed to locate an ashtray. ‘We’ve got an early start tomorrow.’ All the other girls took the cue and shuffled to the door.
As I bid them goodnight and got myself ready for bed I couldn’t help thinking about my bedroom at home with its soft cotton sheets, plush wool carpet and pretty pictures hung against the stylish floral wallpaper I’d been allowed to pick out from the chic Arighi Bianchi store in Macclesfield. I longed to be back in my bed at home, and for my father to knock gently on my door to wake me up in the morning, as he always did. But then, I thought to myself, what would I do all day?
Here I felt terribly homesick despite the girls’ comforting chitchat, but I realised I also felt very much alive and stimulated. My head was filled with hundreds of questions about what tomorrow would bring, and my emotions were on red alert. This experience was unsettling, but it was undeniably exciting too.
It had been an exhausting day, and if my tiredness hadn’t knocked me out I’m pretty sure the thick clouds of smoke the girls left behind in my room would have done. I had one of Graham’s handkerchiefs, which smelled of his Brut aftershave, and I placed it on my scratchy pillowcase for comfort, and to block out the smell of smoke. I didn’t stir until my alarm clock rang at 7.15 a.m., heralding my first full day as a student nurse.
2
‘I really am becoming an MRI nurse!’
‘A patient will not die if you forget to take their blood pressure,’ Sister Craddock pealed in her rich Welsh accent as she escorted us from the schoolroom, ‘but dirty floors breed bacteria, and bacteria kill.’
Sister Craddock had very curly red hair and a face dotted all over with freckles. Her figure was as round and curvy as her tightly sprung ringlets, and I was as captivated by her appearance as I was by her staunch philosophy on hygiene.
We’d spent the morning studying anatomy with Mr Tate, and my head was brimming with medical facts. I’d enjoyed the lessons and found them easy to follow, because I’d studied chemistry and biology for my A-levels. I pictured myself using my new knowledge, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, to help me bandage a wrist or give a patient an injection. The thought was nerve-racking yet exhilarating.
‘Cleanliness is next to godliness,’ Sister Craddock chimed, echoing Miss Morgan’s words on our very first day here. Spinning on her tightly laced brogues, she looked each of us in the eye one by one as she warned very seriously: ‘As a nurse, it is imperative never, ever to forget that.’
This was clearly very important at the MRI. We were student nurses, not cleaners, but I figured I’d better listen as attentively to Sister Craddock as I did to Mr Tate. ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.’ I let the phrase settle in my head, wondering what Sister Mary Francis would make of it. In all my years at my convent school I had heard hundreds, if not thousands, of references to ‘godliness’ but I did not recall that particular phrase. However, I had a pretty good idea I’d be remembering it regularly from now on.
Sister Craddock led a small group of us down several corridors and towards one of the urology wards, continuing to lecture us about hygiene.
‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ she said, and I wondered what she could mean by that. Were the cleaning fluids dangerous? What could possibly threaten us here in the hospital? I was getting used to her loud, melodic voice now and my mind was wandering.
As we approached the ward a sudden, silly image flashed into my head. I imagined Sister Craddock stepping up on stage and belting out the song ‘Goldfinger’. Shirley Bassey was Welsh, wasn’t she? Sister Craddock didn’t look anything like Shirley Bassey but she certainly sounded like her. I could just picture her singing her heart out, flinging her arms wide at her grand finale, then afterwards pointing at the audience triumphantly and declaring: ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, ladies and gentlemen …’
‘Cleanliness is of the utmost importance on the wards, and to maintain our high standards is essential.’ Sister Craddock’s stern words hauled me back into the moment. Images of sequins and stage lights were extinguished in a flash, replaced by thoughts of dusting cloths, mops, buckets and disinfectant. I listened earnestly.
‘We have Nightingale wards here, girls, and if she were alive I would want Florence Nightingale herself to be proud of the cleanliness of them.’
I knew the large, open-plan wards were named after Florence Nightingale because she pioneered their design, but if I’m perfectly honest that was as much as I knew about them, despite their famous namesake. I was curious to find out more.
Sister Craddock pushed her soft bulk through a set of double swing doors, giving us our first glimpse of ‘her’ ward. The smell of cleaning fluid made my nostrils tingle as I stepped into this new territory. ‘Follow me, girls,’ she instructed. ‘I will give you a brief tour of the ward. Please be respectful of patients. No talking. I will do the talking.’
We stood in the first section of the ward, which Sister Craddock explained had a kitchen and a double side room to the left, and sister’s office, linen cupboards and two single side rooms to the right, which we were not invited to enter. Before us stood another set of swing doors, which led into the main part of the ward. We filed gingerly through, eyes and ears wide open.
Twelve beds lined each side of the vast ward, all occupied by ladies in varying stages of sleep who were swathed in flannelette nightgowns and knitted bed jackets. Most looked cosily middle-aged and some wore hairnets and sucked their gums as they surveyed us curiously but courteously.
There was something slightly surreal about the scene that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. One or two women were a bit younger and more fashionable than the others, with floral-print nightgowns and bobbed hair, yet there was an unmistakable correlation between them all.
Down the middle of the ward stood the night sister’s table, covered in green baize and with a large lamp hanging above it. At night, we were informed, a green cloth was placed over the lamp to create an air of calm and promote restful sleep. Beyond it, but also in the centre section of the ward, was a store cupboard plus a metal trolley housing a sterilising unit, and finally the patient’s long wooden dining table.
A sluice room, toilets and a bathroom were situated in the far right-hand corner of the ward, behind bed thirteen. Under the windows at the very back of the ward there was a small television, a few Draylon-covered armchairs and a low coffee table with a neat pile of women’s magazines on it. There was also a round, black ashtray, which had a cover. I’d seen one like it before and knew that when you pressed the button on top the ash would spin cleanly out of sight.
Sister Craddock’s voice sang on as I took in the scene. ‘There are twenty-eight beds in all; four in the side rooms and twenty-four in the main ward. Each ward is run by one sister, six to eight staff nurses and between ten and sixteen student nurses working around the clock. Shifts run from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., 1.30 p.m. to 9 p.m. and 9 p.m. to 7.30 a.m. Jobs are allocated at each shift change and routines must be strictly adhered to.’
As Sister Craddock spoke, a penny slowly dropped for me. I looked at the twelve beds lined up along each white-painted wall and realised how perfectly arranged they were.
‘The ward has to be clean, neat and tidy at all times,’ the Welsh voice continued. ‘Patients are washed and have their beds changed every day. Bedding must be fitted exactly the same way each day, with enveloped corners on bottom sheets, pillowcase ends facing away from the doors and perfectly folded counterpanes on top of the blankets. You will receive precise instruction in bed-making procedures in due course. Please remember always to pull the top sheet up a little to make room for the toes, and to leave the counterpanes hanging at the sides, for neatness. The wheels of the bed must all point in the same direction, and nothing is to be left lying around on the tops of the lockers.’
That was it. The immaculate presentation of the beds and furniture was what made the ward appear slightly surreal. I had never seen such a well-ordered room in my life before, and I marvelled
at how a ward full of sick women in a mishmash of nighties and hair nets could look so methodically well ordered.
The crisp cotton counterpanes were all pale green to match the curtains that could be pulled around each bed. Every bedside locker had a little white bag taped to it for rubbish, leaving the top clear for a jug of fresh drinking water and a glass. Some patients had a vase of flowers on their locker-top or one or two get well cards.
‘Only one bunch of flowers is permitted per patient,’ Sister Craddock cautioned, ‘and it must be removed to the bathroom at night.’
We nodded in unison. Rudimentary biology told me this had something to do with plants releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at night.
‘Smoking is permitted on the ward but not encouraged.’ We nodded in agreement again. This seemed perfectly reasonable.
‘Orderlies damp dust every surface in the ward daily: windowsills, lockers, bed frames and furniture. Domestics clean the floors, toilets, bathroom, kitchen and sister’s office, and twice a week they pull out the beds and clean behind them, thoroughly.
‘As a student nurse you will be expected to attend to the general good hygiene of the patients and help maintain the high standards of cleanliness required on the wards. It has been said that you could eat your dinner off the floor of my ward, and that is how it must always be. Please always ensure that even the wheels of the bed are gleaming and, of course, neatly aligned after cleaning. If ever you find yourself with a spare moment, use it to pick up a cloth and damp dust. There is always a surface to be dusted and cleaned, and there is no room here at the MRI for nurses who are slothful or slipshod.’
I watched a sympathetic-looking nurse plump up an elderly patient’s pillow and fill her glass with fresh water. The patient smiled at the nurse as if she was an angel, and the nurse smiled back, explaining courteously that it was time for the patient’s daily injection. The nurse must have been a third year, as she had three stripes of white bias binding on the sleeve of her uniform.