A Nurse's Life: Heart-warming and humorous tales from a 1950s student nurse (Nurse Jane Grant)

by Jane Grant

  ‘Nurse Grant!’

  I felt like standing to attention.

  ‘Nurse Grant – I believe you’ll be leaving us soon? Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Marsh,’ I replied in a subdued voice. ‘I am leaving at the end of next month.’ I sighed as if heartbroken, but a quick glance showed me that I was rather over-doing the pathos.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she enquired.

  ‘Well, Nurse Ross and I thought of doing midwifery, Sister. But, well – we – er – cancelled our places at Leeds when we thought we were going to get married.’

  She looked at me shrewdly.

  ‘So, in fact, you’ve been waiting around hoping for something to turn up. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said meekly, feeling I was not managing this interview rightly. Oh, for a little of Phyllis’s diplomatic charm!

  And I suppose you’re hoping that Matron will ask you to stay on and do a year’s staff nursing, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted, feeling even smaller.

  ‘You know, I suppose, that we already have too many Staff Nurses?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ My voice sounded very dashed.

  ‘Still – we can’t just throw you out with no bread and butter, can we? There is a post in Casualty and one in Minor Ops Theatre coming up. I’ll see what I can do.’

  Before I could do more than stammer thanks, she turned abruptly and marched out.

  The very moment Sister went to lunch, I rang up Mary to ask if she had been approached by Matron at all, but she was terse to the point of rudeness.

  ‘Look – I’ve had a terrible morning! One old boy dropped a match in his plaster cast and says he’s roasting alive – one of the new Juniors has dropped a tray of thermometers, and Wilson’s biting everyone’s head off if they’re crazy enough to go near her.’

  She banged down the receiver. I waited anxiously the rest of the day, but no summons to the awe-inspiring Matron’s office came, and it seemed as though the next day would go by too without anything happening. However, at four o’clock in the afternoon, I had a telephone call, asking me to present myself the next morning at nine o’clock.

  As soon as I saw Mary, I heard that she too had the same summons. That evening was spent preparing clean caps and darning stockings. It was one of the rare occasions when Phyllis hadn’t been asked out, and she came to assist. We assigned her to the menial task of shoe cleaning, while we prepared hard-luck stories for Matron, and synchronised them.

  ‘What are you going to tell her if she asks why we haven’t re-applied?’ asked Mary. ‘You broke with Keith months ago.’

  ‘She’s not to know that, is she? Can’t I say I cherished the hope of a reconciliation?’

  ‘Not if she’s heard how he threatened to bump you off,’ said Phyllis brutally. She referred to one of the unhappiest incidents of that rather wild affair.

  ‘He was tight when he said that, and would you mind not spitting on my shoes.’

  ‘My brother used to do it in the army. Said it brought them up a treat for the sergeant-major.’

  ‘I don’t care what your brother did,’ I replied stiffly. ‘It seems like it’s disrespectful to Matron.’

  Our interviews next day were short and to the point. We saw Miss Marsh, who told us not to say we had been waiting on in the hope of an offer of a job, as this would infuriate Matron, but to accept the job as a favour – not, she hastened to add, as too much of a favour.

  Matron offered Mary a Staff Nurse’s job in Casualty, and me one in the Minor Ops Theatre in Out-Patients; both appointments to last a year.

  ‘Goody goody gum drops!’ said Mary happily. ‘No midder for a year anyway, and if’ – she did a plausible imitation of Matron looking stern over her spectacles – ‘if we find your work satisfactory, we shall have you in mind for promotion blah blah.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’ve always wanted to be a Matron,’ I said sarcastically.

  The night of Phyllis’s dance drew near, and our evenings were spent fitting her up in her dress and shoes, and deciding which colour lipstick would go with which nail polish. Such vexed questions as to whether she should varnish her toenails or put gold lacquer on her hair were thrashed out with great deliberation, and if she could dress in two hours, or should she ask Thompson for a further concession of off duty.

  At last the time arrived, and we were in almost as bad a state as Phyllis. Mary was frantically pressing out creases in her skirt, while I struggled to sew on a rather tired piece of broderie anglaise to her third slip. Eventually, however, she set off looking like a Vogue model, while we approved our handiwork from the top of the stairs.

  As an adoring escort swept Phyllis out of the Nurses’ Home, Mary and I looked at each other.

  ‘Suppose we go and have some champagne and pâté de foie gras?’ suggested Mary.

  We went to my room, where we feasted off tea and some stale cream crackers.

  I was in the middle of a deep sleep some hours later, when the light was switched on, and Phyllis’s image appeared before my bemused gaze. It was 2 am, and I was very, very tired, but a cigarette was placed in my protesting mouth, and a piece of smoked salmon waved under my nose.

  ‘Oh Jane!’ she began, ‘it was absolutely marvellous!’

  She whirled round my room, stopping abruptly as she bumped into the wardrobe.

  ‘He is simply divine! I can’t think how I lived before! He’s so kind and considerate! We danced every single dance and had a heavenly meal. I got you some strawberries. At least, I would have got you some,’ she added guiltily, seeing the first gleam of interest in my rheumy eyes. ‘But transport was a bit difficult, you know how it is.’ She waved her arms in a dismissing gesture. ‘By the way, he’s asked me to marry him.’

  This was the outside of enough. ‘Phyllis, be a good girl and we’ll discuss it in the morning. My Advisory Section wants a good sleep. So good night.’

  But this had no effect whatever on the starry-eyed Phyllis. She plumped down on my bed.

  ‘He’s so nice! Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like him.’

  ‘Except Les and Eddie and Paul and just about twenty others,’ I suggested. ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow.’

  ‘Your necklace was a great success,’ said Phyllis dreamily.

  ‘How about going to see Mary?’ I suggested hopefully.

  ‘Do you think I ought?’

  ‘She’d love some smoked salmon,’ I said treacherously.

  ‘Yes, perhaps she would. See you in the morning.’ Phyllis drifted out, humming to herself and leaving the light on.

  ‘This is the last time,’ I muttered furiously to myself getting out of bed to turn it off. ‘This is the very last time I have anything whatever to do with Phyllis’s love life.’

  Having turned off the light, I stubbed my toe getting into bed, and got into it determined to sleep the rest of the night.

  I might just as well have given up. She was back in ten minutes, trying to make me debate the pros and cons of marrying Mike.

  ‘All right,’ I snarled at last. ‘I give up.’ I sat up and heard all the details for twenty minutes. By this time I was wide awake, and declaring my opinion. In the middle of what I felt was some exceptionally good advice, Phyllis yawned.

  ‘I think I’ll sleep on it,’ she said, and taking off her dress, she clambered into my bed.

  ‘What,’ I enquired acidly, ‘is wrong with your room?’

  ‘It’s such miles away,’ said Phyllis sweetly, and was asleep.

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