by Dinah Latham
It was a time when very few women would venture alone at night through the streets of Soho, a stone’s throw from the hospital. Yet, in our uniform, we could come and go through any of the back streets with no concern at all. Covent Garden market also ran very close to the hospital and, coming off night duty early in the morning, any bag or basket we were carrying was always filled with fruit and veg as the traders would call a cheery ‘G’night nurse’.
All that had gone alongside all the caring and giving that had resounded throughout these old walls, and had got us all through those final exams and brought us to this point.
Here we all were, lined up against the wall, crisp white aprons, starched butterfly caps being hastily adjusted as we donned our capes and filed into Matron’s office, one at a time. Here we were told how lucky we were to have had our training here, reminded that we were about to take our places in a profession where we would faithfully serve as those who had gone before us had served and, finally, we were cautioned about the hospital reputation resting on our shoulders.
We were then invited to announce where we now intended to take our nursing career and where our first job as a qualified nurse away from our training hospital was to be. We each took our turn, standing nervously before ‘she who must be obeyed’, waiting for approval.
There were only two of us who were intending to work on the community from my set of twenty student nurses. The community was always the poor relation of the nursing profession; being seen as less important, less exciting than hospital work where new treatments and interventions were born and the pace was ever-increasing.
Mandy came out from her ‘exit interview’ looking pale and announcing that Matron had said it was a waste of a good nurse for her to consider nursing on the district; she should not squander her training and should rethink her decision.
It was therefore with some trepidation that I checked the seams in my black stockings, entered through the heavy oak door and strode nervously forward towards the desk, with Matron sitting reverently behind it. The formalities over, I stammered out my desire to work on the community, in patients’ homes. She then calmly announced that she believed that this was an ideal choice for the lack of talent I had displayed throughout my training and that nursing was becoming a highly technical profession, for which I had demonstrated little promise. She added that my insistence on carrying out procedures with my left hand, rather than adapting to the correct way of undertaking tasks, had contributed to making my actions appear clumsy and untidy. District nurses just needed to care for people in unsanitary conditions, mainly elderly patients living or dying with chronic diseases, but there would be no call for anything like the nursing expertise I had been trained for… she said.
There was a sense in which she was to be proved right. I needed to learn new skills that I didn’t yet know I would need. It takes a different expertise to gain entry to someone’s home, when they may be suspicious about what you’re about to do, and even greater communication skills to ‘fit in’ when you’re in there. We were still in the days of the patient in hospital accepting what was best for him and being terrified to disobey the hospital rules. The patient in his own home feels more secure and therefore more able to exert his own will and needs. Understanding, tact and persuasion were needed to convince him to accept help, heed advice or comply with treatment.
I was also to discover that ‘fitting in’ was a new skill I had to learn that was never included in our hospital training syllabus: how to drink tea from a tin mug laced with ‘summut to keep cold ‘art nurse’ (and still be able to stay upright on the bike afterwards); how to hold on to your stomach contents when maggots appeared as you lifted a pendulous abdomen to wash beneath the numerous folds of skin. The owner had been unable to raise her own bulky belly for many months and was now unable to manage her own personal care at all. Equally, I learned how to accept any hospitality offered. If arriving for a visit when high tea was being served, a chair would be pulled out and a nod of the head would demand that I sit and join in. I considered I’d really made it the day I learned to eat egg on toast with no knife or fork at the same time as balancing a two-year-old with a sodden nappy on my lap, while diagnosing a head lice infestation in at least three of the other children.
I was to reflect on the way I was received and welcomed as a district nurse in this London borough when, some twenty or so years later, I moved to work in what would be termed a financially secure area in the south east. Time had marched on and this was a different clientele of upwardly mobile commuting families who would complain if your visit was inconveniently timed. It was here where, on one occasion never to be forgotten, I was requested at my first visit to please use the tradesman’s entrance in future rather than the front door! Clearly, new ways of ‘fitting in’ had to be considered.
But all this lay far ahead. For now all I knew was that I had got through this, the beginning of my career training, even though while I considered I had ‘passed’ my finals, Matron clearly saw me as a ‘failure’; just as my school had seen me as a failure. Indeed I was in their eyes: I failed the dreaded eleven plus which meant I had no brain and would need to be employed using my hands. Hairdressing was promised as I remember. I was becoming used to managing myself as a failure as I sailed forth to my community career.
Anyway, I knew all my patients wouldn’t be elderly because I was about to do my full midwifery qualification to become a district nurse and midwife, with homebirths and those elderly frail all as part of my caseload; probably in the wilds of Cornwall with a dog on the back seat of my car.
Following my midwifery training at Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital – I was now a proud State Certified Midwife – I continued in London to undertake my Queen’s District Nurse training; the last leg of my journey to become a district nurse and midwife.
* * *
Now I want to keep walking to try and get some of the black mud on Harriet’s legs to dry and, hopefully, drop off a bit before we reach home when it will discard itself on to my carpet. A field of long grass might help and I’m remembering a suitable one not too far away. I turn off to circle round to find it. Being somewhat geographically challenged, it’s impossible for me to know which way I’m heading on any unfamiliar route. I’m concentrating, trying to make sure I’m at least walking in the right direction, towards the field rather than away from it. It’s then that I remember just what a disadvantage it was, when I began my district training in London, not to be able to read a map, and how difficult it was for me to learn the layout of the labyrinth of back streets. Maps had always proved fairly useless, with me constantly shuffling them round in my hands trying to decide which way up they should be and if I was at this point, was I facing this way or over that way?
* * *
The heavy oak desk seemed too big for the short, squat frame of the Sister who interviewed me for my Queen’s training. She constantly pushed her glasses up on her nose while her more than ample bosoms polished the green leather surface hidden beneath each one.
Questions seemed to come thick and fast. She hadn’t got time to waste, she told me. When could I start? Did I have any pecuniary embarrassments? I mumbled no, wondering what on earth they were and doubting my ability to undertake this job if I didn’t even know some of the diseases I might catch.
She first handed me a very well used road map with an area enclosed in a thick blue crayon line, telling me that my area would be Portobello Road and I wasn’t to forget that my caseload also included the market stall traders. I folded the map and slipped it into my pocket knowing I would need to study it at length before starting work tomorrow. She hustled me downstairs, flung open the basement door and gesticulated towards the yard, saying that I would need to collect my bike from here and to make sure I wasn’t late; there was a lot to do. She then presented me with my Gladstone bag, complete with instruments and my second white bag lining.
I was to learn fast that the instruments had to be boiled up each night and
a newly laundered bag lining was to be buttoned into the leather bag weekly. There were strict rules about what was to be carried in these equipment bags and they would be checked randomly by this same Sister who would just announce one morning that she would accompany you on your rounds that day. Woe betide you if she discovered your packet of cigarettes hidden in there! In fact, I learned there was a special bag kept just for this inspection occurrence. Whoever was chosen for the sudden “I’m doing your rounds with you today” would lift this pre-prepared bag as she filed through the ‘ops’ room to collect her bike. Meanwhile, other nurses would go rapidly ahead to warn all the patients on your round to please have the newspaper laid out on the floor to receive the Gladstone bag, with a further sheet on the chair for the nurse to put her folded coat on, to please borrow the required large tin jug for the hot water from next door (no pouring hot water directly from the kettle into the bowl for the nurse to wash her hands!), to be on their best behaviour, and definitely not to offer the daily cuppa: “Your nurse is being inspected today.”
And they always rose to the occasion: everything beautifully laid out, the baked biscuit tin resting in the oven full of cooked, sterile, gauze dressing swabs, the fish paste jar with the thermometer in it and the saucepan on the stove ready boiling to receive the instruments for sterilisation. Bless them; each and every one. On my inspection day even old Mr B managed unusually to keep his hands to himself and didn’t take a large pinch of my backside as I passed the bed. Nowadays, he’d be threatened with a sexual harassment suit. Then, the water for the blanket bath would be barely tepid.
When I began my district nursing work in Notting Hill, I was allocated a bike to do my daily rounds. It had a wicker basket, a clanking mudguard and a chain that fell off with monotonous regularity. It never became my friend in all my days on and around Portobello Road, the centre of my patch. It wasn’t the trendy smart area it has now become. It was a poor neighbourhood in the ‘60s but it was always vibrant and colourful. I grew to love it all, and to feel very cared for by all its inhabitants. It was a hardworking, happy time in my career. Many of the stall owners knew me well and often I’d come out after a visit to find, once again, my bicycle basket filled with fruit or vegetables, and on one occasion a huge bunch of flowers with a note saying ‘Thanks very much for being so good to my dad.’ I never knew who they were from or who the dad was they referred to.
Yes. That bike should have been a beloved companion. But it wasn’t.
6
CHILDBIRTH AND MOTHERHOOD
We are doing the big field walk today. Everything has sprung up so high that Harriet disappears completely as she bounces up and down through it all like an energetic gazelle. I call her and she races back as we come to the end of the long straight stretch. We round the last bend and there it opens out into the most beautiful clover walkway – an extraordinary sight, a definite pathway, with scrubland on one side about shoulder high and high grasses on the other, their pinky seed heads being crushed as Harriet dives into them. Here in the middle is a definite pathway carpeted with white clover flowers; a bed of blooms that seems to spring back after every footprint. It was about to be a really hot day, but here and now there was no strength in the early morning sunshine and yet it was warm enough to hold promise.
* * *
Something about coming across the surprise clover pathway in a field I thought I knew well reminds me of how we should never take anything for granted and how everything that grows is ever changing with the seasons. Because of that, it feels especially important to grab every view and every scent experience and hold on to it, even for a few seconds, before it’s gone never to return in quite the same way or with quite the same meaning again.
I’m reminded of a piece of writing I did way back in 1973, when I was experiencing motherhood with my first toddlers.
On my Hands and Under my Feet
My twin boys were two years old and my eldest son three, and the kitchen floor was ankle-deep in toys and clutter as usual. A friend visiting today said, like so many others, “What a good idea having them so close together. They’ll be off your hands before long.”
I feel sad because I wonder if those who say it will ever realise what they’ve missed and thrown away by constantly rushing their infants through all the stages to that time when school and independence are there.
Okay, I can scream along with any mother at the end of a hectic day, when I just never seem to have enough hours or hands to cope – when I’ve thought that if that wail goes on much longer, or if I trip over one more toddler clinging to my skirt hem, they’ll none of them reach their next birthday.
But with that never-ending trail of household chores that surrounds the under-five family and when I despair of ever finding a two-minute break to call my soul my own, there are so many compensations that I cherish because I know these experiences with my toddlers are all the more precious because they are soon gone forever. These days will never come again when, to my children, I am needed so acutely and so completely. To be able to bring a huge smile to a face with a great big kiss and a cuddle and to have podgy arms squeezing round my neck is indeed an intense pleasure.
I never drooled over other people’s babies and even when I was pregnant, I often used to wonder how I would respond to my own. It was quite a revelation to find that, along with all the hard work, the pleasures followed in their multitudes. Snuggling a little body close and just holding something that seems to enjoy it so much compels one to join in and enjoy it too! I actually look forward to that cry in the night, just to get another look at him.
There are bad times along with the good: the bad temper, the tiredness, the times when you’re ill and cannot cope and, worst of all, the worry. There seems to be a necessary agony of anxiety that accompanies having children. I can’t believe I shall ever be quite as carefree again as before I gave birth; and yet will I really be quite so obsessed with whether or not to take him to the doctor with that cough, or whether or not to let him climb quite so far up that tree, and playing outside – he won’t stray and get lost, will he? No, surely not. When they’re teenagers I shall probably worry about whether they’re safe on that motorbike and stay awake all night waiting for them to come in.
It seems to me that while we are tired and harassed, we should savour the good things that babyhood offers. The anxiety and the hard work make each pleasure so well earned that we should grasp it with both hands. It’s like having a second chance at life, to see it all anew through a toddler’s eyes: when to speak to a cat on the way to the shops is a thrill; and when talk of jelly for tea brings such glee to a small face that one feels guilty for ever wanting more from life than jelly.
I do have every sympathy with those who think children are at their most delightful all tucked up in bed fast asleep. What could be nicer? And while they’re there, out of harm’s way, I indulge in an orgy of adult satisfaction. And yet I have been known to prod one awake to get another hug for free.
One day there will be utter peace in the mornings and I shall stay in bed till lunchtime and maybe pluck my eyebrows as well; but then there will be no replete sticky bundle to give me a big wet kiss and say, “I do love you, Mummy,” and make me feel on top of the world. Tomorrow he could grow up and tell me he hates me!
Being a mother is something you don’t have to do well to succeed in your toddler’s eyes. Do the job badly and he’ll still love you and give you another chance tomorrow. Who could ask for more in this success-orientated world we live in?
The position of ‘mother’ seems to have changed. It used to be regarded as sinful to go out to work when you had young children. Now, unless you carry on working until you go into labour and take up your career again before the baby is a month old (and, by the by, study for a degree as well), you’re considered to be a rather brainless, drab cabbage.
It may be becoming rapidly antisocial to reproduce, and even more unfashionable to like being tied at home with toddlers, but while it lasts this is
mine and I will enjoy it.
* * *
I turn to take one last look at the clover pathway. There is the fresh smell of dew trapped in the tightly bunched clover leaves. The sun will gain strength, the leaves will dry; it may never look quite the same again. I stoop to put Harriet on the lead before leaving and she rolls over on her back, waving her legs in the air, glorying in the softness of the clover bed – she too is grasping the moment – while this lasts this is mine and I will enjoy it.
* * *
It’s 3.35am on February 10th 2008 and I’m up having a favourite milky coffee, silently wishing my youngest child, my daughter, a happy birthday. I’m unsure what has woken me but I move slowly and carefully to ensure Harriet stays fast asleep. Early morning walks I love but not ‘in the night’ walks. So here I am sitting alone at just the time Isabelle was born thirty years ago.
She was a beautiful baby from the minute she was born… the claim of all mothers. Again, in the quiet and alone I cradled her. Gorgeous auburn hair surrounded a very determined gaze, looking directly at me, staring attentively it seemed as I admitted out loud that I wasn’t at all sure I knew what to do with a girl. My mothering skills were well honed on three boys, her brothers, but a baby girl…?
She was very special, totally unplanned and I’m still not quite sure how it happened! Even then, with the shock of discovering, somewhat late, that I was indeed pregnant, I had to smile at the way nature finds a way of defeating our exhaustive efforts to prevent such happenstances. This was 1977. This joyous surprise may have been unintentional but she was to be my last baby, cherished forever. Birthing was always an experience that reached my soul. Each time I felt I had touched the eternal… a feeling of utter bliss. This was fulfilment of purpose, uniquely mine, yet connecting with womankind the world over; a time to pity mankind that he will never experience this overwhelming ecstasy.