‘The poor nurses,’ we would quite often hear her tell the amicably grunting Hicks. ‘Ever such lovely girls! Seems a shame!’
I was off at 9.30 that morning. I handed over the Nursery to the senior pupil, a North Country girl named Ellen Grayson, who was a trainee of a famous Lancashire hospital. She wore a very attractive dark-green uniform. We all wore our own parent hospital’s uniform at Elmhall, which made things rather confusing for the patients and doctors at first, but was a refreshing change for everyone in the long run after years of looking at identically dressed young women.
Ellen Grayson was a fresh-faced girl with tidy little rows of curls. Her skin had a faint sun-tan even this early in the year. She was an ardent youth hosteler, and she spent her days off walking innumerable miles round England. She knew every famous and infamous beauty spot in the country before she had been a month at Elmhall.
We looked at the new baby, whose cry was quieter now. The baby’s surname was Peters. I said I had to give him a drink of saline.
‘Did he take it?’ she asked.
‘Some. A good deal got spat out at me.’
I told her about the phenobarbitone and not lifting him out of his cot. She nodded; this was all routine.
‘Who delivered him, Nurse Anthony?’
I had been checking up. ‘New one on me. Mr Ormorod.’
She chuckled. ‘That one! Eee! God’s gift t’ pupil-midwives, that lad.’
‘Is he?’ I was interested, her description fitted few young men in St Gregory’s Hospital Medical School.
‘He is,’ Grayson was firm. ‘Wow!’ she added as an afterthought, tying on a green towelling nursery apron over her own white linen one.
‘I say, Nurse Anthony ‒’
I stopped in the doorway, held the mask I had just taken off over my face, and turned round. ‘Yes?’
‘Has that chap Peters been baptized?’
‘No.’ I thought, as I had often thought before, what a reliable person Grayson was, she was invariably a couple of mental steps ahead in her work.
‘No,’ I said again, still holding the mask like a yashmak. ‘I don’t think there’s any immediate worry, but if there is you know the form.’
‘Aye,’ she nodded, ‘boy ‒ John, girl Mary.’
‘That’s it, and he’s a boy. Have a nice morning.’
‘Thanks, Nurse Anthony. You too.’ She vanished into the milk cupboard. The milk cupboard had once been a large built-in wardrobe. On the inside of each door was a long mirror. Nurse Grayson was built on the chubby side. I saw three large green bustles jiggling busily as she mixed up the dried milk powder. Then I opened the Nursery door, and folding my mask, put it into my pocket.
Beth Durant came out into the corridor from the labour ward as the Nursery door closed behind me. She was labour ward staff-nurse. She still wore her mask, over which her eyes were smiling.
‘Joa ‒ have you seen the new boys?’
‘I’ve seen the handiwork of one of them. The poor infant’s black and blue, and Allan had to get up and patch a third degree on the mum.’
She looked serious for a moment, then took off her mask and smiled properly. ‘I know. But Night Sister said he couldn’t help it ‒ and the mum is fine.’
I said nothing.
‘How’s Junior?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. He’s got a hellish high-pitched cry. I wish Muir was here.’
Something was niggling in my mind about that baby, just as I had felt it had in Allan’s mind. He did not seem to know what it was, and I did not either. I just knew I was not happy, but was not sure what, if anything. I could do about it.
Miss Muir was the Nursery Sister who was away for the weekend. I was generally quite pleased to be on my own for a couple of days, but whenever something odd came out I wished her back. Babies, new-born babies, are tricky things at the best of times, and when things go wrong with them they go wrong very quickly. Miss Muir had an extra sense where the babies were concerned. She was the best baby-doctor I have ever met in my life, and I was not alone in my high professional opinion of her. For twelve years she had specialized in babies, and she certainly had no equal on the medical or nursing staffs of Gregory’s. As a Nursery Sister she was, as I have said, admirable. I wished she had not gone away that morning.
The staff dining-room was in what had been built as a small conservatory. It made an ideal eating-place. In summer the glass walls folded back, and we seemed to be dining on the lawn; in winter the steam-heating from the radiators transformed it into the hothouse it really was. There was something both strange and pleasant about sitting warmly at breakfast in a rainstorm, or lunching with the snow lying snugly overhead like so much cotton-wool. At Elmhall the nursing and medical staffs ate together. There was a strong element of the coeducational campus about the whole unit; if the young men did not offer to carry our books they certainly queued at the serving-table for our meals while we sat smugly and rested our two feet. There was very little etiquette and no formality at all observed by the Maternity Unit. The staff was too small, the Matron too sensible; the harassed, hard-worked housemen at first too worried by their responsibilities, and, later, too well fed by Sandy to be capable of asserting themselves. They would have had little success if they had. The God Almighty complex from which some of the medical profession is inclined to suffer was not encouraged at St Gregory’s Hospital, London.
Mrs Sandford was pouring out coffee as Beth and I came in. She looked over to us and grimaced. ‘Why is it that you staff-nurses can never be punctual for your meals?’
Beth picked up two coffee-cups. ‘Because, Sandy, darling, we like to take advantage of your heart of gold.’
Sandy told us grimly to get along with us, and handed us each a double portion of omelette.
Three midder clerks were loitering over empty cups and cigarettes. The clerks ate with the nurses at nine o’clock. One of them looked across at Beth and me as we sat down. He had a heavy lock of pale-brown hair hanging rather affectedly over his forehead. His eyes were light. I could not tell what colour, just that they were light. He leant back in his chair and showed the largest pair of shoulders I had ever seen, even after watching inter-hospital rugger matches for eight years.
‘Which one of you ladies is the Nursery?’ he asked, and yawned.
I said I was.
‘How’s my infant? I gather from Kinnoch I was a trifle heavy-handed.’
Ellen Grayson had said he was God’s gift to the pupil-midwives. Just at the moment it was difficult to see how she had reached that conclusion.
‘Do you mean young Peters?’
‘That’s his name?’ His voice was casual. ‘Chap I produced in the small hours.’
I looked down at his hands before I answered. He had hands in keeping with his shoulders. His build was perfect for orthopaedic work but hardly ideal for obstetrics.
‘He’s a bit beaten up,’ I said slowly. ‘He looks as if you had a sharp hand-to-hand struggle with him. You want to save that for some one nearer your weight.’
The others laughed.
‘My good young woman,’ he said equably, ‘I’m in no mood for persiflage. I am a wreck of my former self. A very shadow. It’s a wonder my hair isn’t white.’
Sandy’s bulk shook. I saw Beth watching her with the surprise I felt. Sandy was a good judge of the boys. If she was laughing it meant she liked him. Sandy was the human iceberg where she disapproved.
‘What happened, Mr Ormorod?’ she asked now.
‘What happened?’ He turned towards her at the head of the table. ‘What happened?’ His voice rose. ‘My dear madam. First I’m thrown out of bed in short order by Martin Herrith. I creep across the yard in my pyjamas and overcoat ‒ I, the young, almost-qualified doctor ‒ all ready to aid suffering womanhood. I promptly fall over a small army of bicycles. A night nurse appears and curses me to hell and says must I make all that noise. I say I must, and she is not at all pleased. I expect her to lead me to Night Sister a
nd cups of tea. Not at all. She says kindly, “Sister is in the Labour Ward.” I go up. I come down again ‒ Sister having told me smartly to go back and put some clothes on and come back properly dressed. I go back. I cross the yard. I fall over the bicycles. Nurse curses me again. I get up to my room ‒ did I say my room? Herrith curses me. I tiptoe down the stairs. Kinnoch is hating my guts aloud. All right. I deliver Junior. He pushes. I push. Mum pushes. All hell is let loose. Hurrah, it’s a boy. Boost for Ormorod.’
He stopped to stub his cigarette and glare round the table.
‘Is that the end? By no means. Kinnoch materializes, and only your sex prevents my telling you what he calls me. He dwells unfavourably on the subject of my hands, the hands that Nurse here has just been giving such dirty looks. Kinnoch stitches, Sister threads needles, I stitch. They both curse me again. The mother is happily anaesthetized or doubtless she would have joined in. Junior yells blue murder in his cot. We finish our darning. But is that the end for Ormorod! No, no. Kinnoch starts murmuring something about a fourth stage.’
He stopped speaking again, and it was just as well, since we were all laughing too much to hear him had he gone on longer.
‘I see you all know about the fourth stage.’ He sighed, ‘Well, we dumped the mama, and Sister says sweetly, “Now for the mopping, Mr Ormorod.” I’m just about to say I left the Navy five years ago and am now a medical student when she hands me a bucket of bloody sheets and tells me to get on with it. So I get on with it. Only she means wash ’em. I finish, and she smiles nicely and says, “How about the swabbing?” By now I’ve given up. Sister hands me a dirty great mop and I start in on the floor. The Labour Ward now looks as clean as a quarter-deck. Sister is playing around with the placenta in the sink. She smiles again and I’m hamstrung. What next? Sister says she must introduce me to Jimmy and then trips away railing softly over her shoulder that I’ll want some newspaper.
‘It is now nearly five o’clock and I can stand anything. I am Ormorod, one of the original hearts of oak. I’m all for social calls on Jimmy at dawn even if it appears that Jimmy lives in the basement. I’m just about to ask Sister what Jimmy is doing among all the girls when I find we are in the cellar. There are a good many cockroaches in the cellar, too. They move over to make room for me. Sister wisely stays in the doorway. She hands me a nasty-looking kidney-dish and tells me to just pop the placenta into my newspaper and shove it in Jimmy. So there I am burning placentas to greet the dawn, and you ask me, Mrs Sandford, what happened?’ He rested his head on his hands, his elbows propped on the table, then he looked up and smiled. ‘I tell you what happened. I went into the orchard and found a swing.’
‘Never mind,’ said Beth comfortably. ‘Wait till you have to stoke Jimmy. He’s a swine.’
‘Should I have done that as well?’ he said calmly.
‘The night nurses do it ‒ but they like help.’
He smoothed his suede waistcoat. ‘And you think I have a heart of gold, too? Thank you.’
Allan stood in the doorway, small and square; very erect, very good-looking.
‘Oh, there you are, Joanna.’ He came over to our table. ‘Martin is up in the Nursery now.’
I went on with my breakfast. ‘Nurse Grayson is on,’ I said. ‘She’s a good girl. She’ll do.’
I could not think why Allan was going quietly mad this morning. He knew nursing etiquette as well as I did. If I went back I would upset Grayson badly and needlessly. She was perfectly competent.
Allan still hovered. ‘You aren’t really worried about him, then?’
I thought before I answered. Now that I had had some food I felt a lot happier about young Peters. That was the only serious fault I found with Elmhall. Working in the mornings for two hours before breakfast.
‘He is cerebral,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think he sounds as if much damage has been done. I doubt that he’s torn. He should settle down. And, anyway,’ I concluded rather lamely, ‘there’s nothing to be done but wait and see.’
‘You’ll not bath him yet?’ asked Allan.
‘No ‒ if you think not!’ I nearly added, ‘You’re the doctor, not me!’
Ormorod was following what we said. ‘Does this concern me?’ he asked.
‘Yes ‒ it’s your baby,’ I said. Then, having finished my breakfast, I excused myself to Sandy, and went out of the dining-room with Allan.
‘Look, Allan,’ I said. ‘Are you really worried?’
He smiled. ‘Not about him. It’s just that I want to have a talk with you, and this place is so damnably matey that I never get a chance to see you alone.’
We were standing in the middle of the downstairs corridor. The ward-nurses were rushing backward and forward around us carrying covered surgical-trays and uncovered bedpans. One of the less attractive sides of midwifery is the fact that owing to the dangers of cross-infection bed-pan covers are forbidden. Ten o’clock in the morning is the rush-hour of wash-downs and dressings.
Allan smiled at me again. I was nearly as tall as he was. With my cap on we must have looked the same height.
‘This is hardly the place,’ he said. ‘When can I see you?’ I thought he most probably wanted to talk about next weekend again, and I had hoped he would let the thing drop. House-physicians and house-surgeons generally have a yen for staff-nurses ‒ it’s all part of the curriculum. As I was already involved with my own particular house-surgeon, I did not feel like complicating matters even slightly with Allan Kinnoch. I was just going to say that all my weekends were irrevocably booked when he dodged out of the way of a pupil carrying a tray-load of Dettol-filled jugs and said, ‘The reason I want to talk to you, Joanna, is that I want to ask you to marry me. Will you, please?’
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A Nurse’s Life by Jane Grant
Heart-warming and humorous tales from a 1940s student nurse
In this warm and witty book, Jane Grant recounts her life as a trainee nurse in a busy 1940s London teaching hospital.
Jane, and her friends Mary and Phyllis, discover that both happiness and heartache can be found on the wards of St. Bernard’s Hospital. Before long they realise it takes determination and a sense of humour to deal with the colourful characters of hospital life – and that goes for the staff as well as the patients.
The young nurses gain their medical training under the watchful eyes of strict, but generally fair, sisters and matrons. They meet patients who are facing the biggest challenges of their lives, and share with them moments of bravery and fear. There are times of laughter, but also of tears.
There is romance too, as Jane and her fellow student nurses enjoy the attentions of the hospital’s handsome young doctors, falling in and out of love for the first time.
A Nurse’s Life is a moving and amusing account of a bygone era, brought vividly to life. Also available in this series, there is more from Jane and her friends and family in More From a Nurse’s Life, A Sister’s Life and A Country Life.
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A Country Practice: New Beginnings by Judith Colquhoun
Brendan and Molly Jones swap city living for a new start in the country. But are they prepared for rural life in Wandin Valley?
A Country Practice follows the dramas, loves, secrets and dilemmas of the people in a small country town in south-eastern Australia. There is romance, humour and tragedy for the medical staff and patients of the Wandin Valley Bush Nursing Hospital, and their friends and neighbours.
Brendan and Molly meet the colourful characters who will change their lives forever.
Terence Elliott is the town’s respected doctor, but can he overcome his demons to save a mother and baby in dang
er?
Simon Bowen, the newest doctor in town, is frustrated at being seen as an outsider by the tight knit country people. Will he succeed in winning them around ‒ especially young vet Vicky Dean?
Police sergeant Frank Gilroy has his heart set on Vicky’s mum, Sister Shirley Dean. But is he the man for her?
Meanwhile, a teenager in love clashes with her father and a serious car accident reveals a surprising secret about two of the town’s residents.
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The Country Doctor by Jean McConnell
Captivating tales from a young GP’s case notes
Young doctor Linda Ford swaps a busy London teaching hospital for a six month post at a small West Country General Practice. She soon discovers that countryside life is far from uneventful.
John Cooper, the senior doctor, warns Linda not to get emotionally involved in her cases. But Linda can’t help taking a personal interest in her patients, particularly when their problems seem to be more than medical. And as this is the late 1970s, Linda also faces some misgivings about a female doctor. Especially a young and pretty one.
Linda clashes over medical matters with Dr Peter Cooper, the older doctor’s son. But there is an undeniable attraction too. Where will it lead? And as Linda is keeping Peter’s place until he joins the practice as his father’s partner, what will her future hold?
This slice of rural life uncovers the dramas, family secrets and dilemmas which confront patients young and old. Their stories are in turn intriguing, poignant, and heart-warming.
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One Night in London: a hospital in wartime (The Jason Trilogy Book 1) Page 19