by Pam Weaver
‘Outside,’ said Dad. ‘I’m off to the pub.’
‘Good old Sunday lunch,’ said Mum, putting on her coat to go and get one.
Dad caught her arm. ‘None of us will be getting rabbit for Sunday lunch this week,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t bloody kill ’em, could I?’
It took him several days to pluck up the courage to do the awful deed, but finally he made it. When I went for training, he would donate a couple to the nursery every now and then. I would travel on the Royal Blue coach with my suitcase and a brown paper parcel with two dead rabbits. When I got back to the nursery, Sister and I would skin them and prepare them ready for the cook next day. Matron was pleased to have them, but sadly it never did make me her blue-eyed girl.
As part of the daily routine in the nursery, the younger children were always taken outside for some fresh air. If the weather was bad or it was raining, they would spend the morning in their prams in the pram shed. It was a dingy place but the prams were lined up side by side, the children put into a blanket bag and strapped in. We made the blanket bags ourselves – we used old worn blankets and stitched up the sides. Then we put tapes at the top. The babies and tweenies were put into the blanket tube and the tapes tied on the shoulder. They may have kicked off their covers but inside the bag, they never got cold. We gave them a few toys to play with, which usually ended up on the floor, and most of them fell asleep for a while although I suspect it was more from boredom than tiredness.
The prams had all been donated to the home and were in fairly good condition. They were all coach-built, or made of fibreglass. (The Marriet was coach-built and the Pedigree was fibre glass.) We preferred the coach-built pram because it kept the baby warm in winter and cool in summer. They were large prams and had ‘C’ springs to ensure a smooth ride for the baby. The back wheel was larger than the front wheel to make it easier to push up and down the kerb. The tyres were rubber and the handle firmly bolted to the body. It had a rubber grip, which made it easier for pushing, and the pram had a good foot brake, which meant that the adult could keep both hands firmly on the handle at all times. The lining was padded to make sure the baby didn’t get knocked and all prams had a hood and storm apron in case of bad weather. In the summer, there was a sun canopy which could be fixed under the screws holding the hood. This would go right over the baby and protect him from the bright sunlight.
We also had a quad pram. This was a coach-built pram in which four tweenies could sit up and enjoy going for a walk. Even though there were four children inside, it was easy to push and we would often use it to take the children out. Once I was pushing the quad pram. I had a child with blonde hair, a child with flaming red hair, a black child and a child with an oriental look about him in it. As I was pushing the pram around the shops, a woman came up to me. ‘Oh,’ she cried. ‘Aren’t they sweet? Are they all yours?’
I shook my head and smiled politely but as I walked away, I couldn’t help wondering if she’d thought I had a rainbow-coloured husband!
Being a nursery nurse makes you very observant. We may not have known an awful lot about sick babies but we did know a healthy one and that often became the yardstick that would make it obvious if a child was unwell. At a month old, a baby lies more or less helplessly on his back, usually with his head to one side and the arm on that side extended. He has a good sucking reflex and it can easily be elicited by touching his mouth. His eyes move but are as yet unfocussed although he will respond to loud noises. Sarah was only a few weeks old when she was admitted but I knew something was wrong. When she cried, she would push her head back so far it almost touched her spine. I pointed it out to the nurse in charge and she was seen by the doctor. She was taken to hospital with cerebral irritation, perhaps a birth injury but more likely because she had come into the nursery because of neglect. Nothing was ever proven and we all hoped it was caused by a birth injury rather than ill-treatment. Sarah didn’t come back to the nursery.
At four months old a baby spends more time awake and moves his arms and head freely. He can now focus his eyes and he will smile when you talk to him. In every other way, Andrew was a healthy and happy little boy but held his head in a rather odd way. Up until he came to the nursery, he had been placed in exactly the same position every time he’d been put in his cot. We always changed the side we laid babies down so that this sort of thing didn’t happen. As time went on, Andrew’s balance became better, but he always held his head at a slight angle the whole time he was in the nursery. He came into the nursery because his mother was unwell. The family had several other children who were being looked after by relatives but there was no one to look after the baby. Happily, Andrew’s mother recovered and after a few weeks, he went home. The child care officer would have advised Andrew’s mother about varying the sleeping position of her baby.
By nine months old, the baby has a few teeth. He has a preference for sitting up and he can raise himself up or roll over. Some babies can stand if they have something to hold onto. He can drink from a cup and is able to pick up small particles of food with his fingers, usually using the thumb and second finger. Christopher chewed everything and the day I put his small chair a bit too close to the artificial Christmas tree, in his enthusiasm to get one of the baubles, he wrecked it. Luckily for me he didn’t manage to put one in his mouth!
At a year old, baby is awake for half the day. He is an agile crawler and ready to walk but his balance is insecure. Usually he can say a few words and he’s beginning to show his emotions a lot more clearly. Pleasure, fear, annoyance, anger and how to attract attention are all skills he has learned. He can feed himself and will cooperate in his dressing and undressing. Lisa came to life when she was in her bath. She would slash and kick her legs and although we gave her extra time in it, she was always upset to come out of the water. As soon as we undressed her, she would say the one word in her vocabulary, ‘Bubbles!’ I often wonder if she became a swimmer. She was adopted so the chances of her being able to do something she enjoyed would have been markedly enhanced. Her parents waited a long time to have her and were desperate for a little girl.
By eighteen months, baby would have anything up to twelve teeth. Walking well, he can sit easily and climb into a chair. He would enjoy going bump-bump down the stairs on his bottom and he could pull a wheeled toy. He likes to ‘help’ in the nursery and can respond to simple commands. His curiosity is being developed, as well as his powers of observation. Peter was so excited when he went out for a walk. ‘Bus,’ he cried as a red double decker sped past. Back in the nursery he got a book from the book corner. ‘Bus,’ he said, pointing to the picture. ‘Clever boy,’ I said. Peter ‘read’ that book until it almost fell apart. I can’t actually remember what happened to Peter but isn’t it strange how some children are frozen in the memory? Peter looking at his bus book is one of those indelible memories for me.
By the time a child has reached three years old, he has all his first twenty teeth. He can walk and run freely and with confidence. Balance and coordination has reached a level where he can ride a tricycle and walk up and down stairs on his own. He understands rewards for good behaviour and he is dry at night; he also enjoys drawing and has favourite toys. Delroy was concentrating on getting dressed. No, he didn’t want help. When he’d finished, he had his underpants on back to front, his shirt buttoned all wrong and he’d forgotten to put his vest on but never mind, he was very proud that he had got dressed, ‘all by my own.’
The child in the nursery was moved on at the age of five. By this time, he had confidence and independence. He could play imaginative games, dress and undress and brush his hair. He could draw fairly well and had a vocabulary of about two thousand words. He was talkative and enjoyed having a conversation.
We all sat at the dinner table with our eyes closed and our hands together.
‘Thank you, dear God, for our food,’ I said. ‘Amen.’
All the children responded with a loud ‘Amen’.
Calum frowned and look
ed at the boy next to him. ‘Old men?’ he queried.
For all her meanness of spirit, Matron Dickenson could sometimes do something very nice. We were a little bit nervous when she did, wondering where the catch was, but she wasn’t all bad. A popular ITV programme at that time was Sunday Night at the London Palladium. It pulled in an eye-watering twenty-eight million viewers and starred some of the world’s greatest entertainers. To our amazement, Matron got tickets for the students to go. They were free but because the show was so popular, they weren’t easy to get hold of. She arranged for a skeleton staff to cover our absence and we set off for London. Everybody was hoping that The Beatles might be the star turn, or perhaps the Rolling Stones. The night we went, there was a brand new group called The Seekers on stage. We’d never heard of them before but they became mega-stars from 1965 onwards. They sang a beautiful song and the lead singer, Judith Durham, had the kind of voice that made your skin tingle when you heard it. I think they sang, ‘I’ll Never Find Another You’, the song which catapulted them to fame shortly after. The host of the show, Norman Vaughan (we’d missed the very popular Bruce Forsyth), was quite good and we all enjoyed Beat the Clock. Beat the Clock involved married couples, picked from the theatre audience, playing silly games in which they had to complete within a set time period with a chance of winning a £1,800 jackpot – a lot of money in those days. We clapped a lot. Every time a man appeared at the corner of the stage, he held up a card which said ‘clap’ and we did so until our hands hurt. The main star of the night was Buddy Ebsen. We’d never heard of him but later in the Sixties he was to become famous as Jed Clampett in the TV sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. Sadly that night we weren’t very impressed, mainly because he seemed to be so old!
The professionals made us laugh, but the children did it better. Like the time when Nurse Christine had a birthday. In the Toddler room, we all sang ‘Happy Birthday To You’ and then Kelvin said, ‘How old are you?’
‘You shouldn’t ask a grown up how old they are,’ Miss Hill the nursery warden said.
‘That’s okay,’ smiled Christine. ‘I’m nineteen.’
Kelvin regarded her with a look of deeply-held respect. ‘You’re very old aren’t you?’ he said.
‘That’s nothing,’ Carole, aged four and three quarters, piped up. ‘My granddad is sixty-six and he isn’t even dead yet.’
And then there was the time when Alan made us laugh in the garden. He had been running about for ages, boasting that he ‘could run very, very fast.’
As he came back to me, I said, ‘You’re all out of breath.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he smiled. ‘I’ve got some more.’
And finally, several children were playing doctors and nurses in the Wendy house together. I looked over the top of the wall to see Johnny lying across the table with his pants down. Sarah, resplendent in her nurse’s outfit, was hovering over him with a construction straw in her hand. Horrified, I gasped, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Just taking his temperature,’ came the serious reply as I quickly removed the straw.
Whenever things like this happened, I knew just why I had chosen to become a nursery nurse. I loved the things the kids said and their innocent seriousness made it even more enjoyable. Some were natural comedians and others more like accidental ones, but whenever they made us laugh, we could never resist giving them an extra hug. Studying their progress was enjoyable too. If I hadn’t known what to look for, years later I might have missed those milestones when I had children of my own.
Chapter 8
When I look at my childcare notes for that era, it’s startling to realise that we were still being taught how to look after children with diseases we never hear about today. I have a whole section on recognising the symptoms and the care of a child with poliomyelitis. Thank God, vaccination has all but eradicated that terrible disease from this country but even in the Sixties, children were still getting it. I remember in the Fifties a girl in my class at school had to wear a calliper on her leg as a result of contracting polio. Diphtheria was another one. If someone was complaining of headaches, shivering, rapid pulse rate and had a throat with a greyish-white appearance, we were exhorted to get that child to hospital because the complications could be catastrophic. The nursery nurse is unlikely to come across these diseases today unless he or she works in third world countries.
Another disease, which is totally treatable in this day and age, was caused by an under-active thyroid gland. Lily was a cretin. Until I met her, I had always thought of the word only in terms of a particularly nasty form of insult. I had no idea it was a real condition. Cretinism is a term that is now frowned upon but it happens when there is a severe lack of thyroid hormone. This condition is usually detected within a week or so of birth because all babies are screened on day six by a blood sample taken by a pick on their heel.
Back in the Sixties I’m not sure that that screening or treatment was available. Certainly Lily wasn’t on any medication in the nursery and she was typical of children with the condition. She had dry wrinkled skin and her tongue was a tad too large for her mouth. Her fingers were broad, and she had a small hernia near her belly button. The whole of her body was covered in thick downy hair and her wild auburn hair was very thick and tufty. If untreated, the condition results in mild to severe impairment of both physical and mental growth and development, and I recognised that Lily fitted into that category perfectly.
She did, however, have a good level of understanding. One day a fly was buzzing around the Baby room and Lily became very excited. Pointing at it, she kept repeating the word ‘fly’ in her deep, manly voice and in the end all of us were in stitches, including Lily herself. Today, a child with Lily’s condition would be treated with Thyroxin, given in tablet form, crushed and mixed with expressed breast milk, formula milk or water.
The one thing Lily hated was carrots but Dickie had a policy that the children had to eat everything put in front of them. If anything went back to the kitchen, she would accuse the staff of being too lazy to give it to the children. Mostly we covered up their dislikes by eating it ourselves, or stuffing what we could into our pockets. We sent our uniforms to the laundry each week and when her clean clothes came back, one of the students –Norah, a rather studious girl with thick pebble glasses – found a brown paper bag in her laundry box. Someone had written on the bag, ‘returned in case you feel peckish’. Inside was what had once been a marmalade sandwich, which some child had refused to eat at breakfast time. Norah couldn’t face it either, so she’d stuffed it in her pocket and forgotten all about it. Now rock solid and a delicate shade of grey, it gave us all a good laugh as I’m sure it did the laundry workers who found it.
When we gave Lily her dinner, we dreaded the days when it was carrots. Dickie didn’t believe a child under five could have a hatred of something. She regarded resistance as naughtiness so she would make a child eat whatever was on their plate. We all hated to see her doing it but we couldn’t help poor Lily. Today’s nursery nurse has far more clout. The fact that anyone can be a whistle blower or refuse to do something they believe is wrong is a right which had to be hard-fought for and won by the people of my generation. We take it for granted now and quite rightly so, that Lily, young as she was, should have been allowed to state her preference. Back in 1962, she had no choice but a year later, when Sister Hemmingway came on the scene, she made it quite clear right from the start that no child in her care would be made to eat something they didn’t want. She stood up to Dickie and once the battle lines were drawn, although things were very unpleasant for a while, Sister got her way.
The child care officers were always keen for unmarried mothers to name the child’s father. Lily’s mother was put under that pressure and she came up with a unique definition of her pregnancy. Those who knew the family situation were convinced that she had had an incestuous relationship and that Lily’s grandfather was also her father. He was a loud, self-opinionated and domineering parent, so it was hardly su
rprising that Lily’s mother stoutly refused to talk.
‘I ain’t been with nobody,’ she told them, rolling her eyes innocently. Then looking a little more thoughtful she added, ‘Ooh … I sat in me brother’s bath water after he’d finished. Could that have been when it ’appened?’
Lily was still in the nursery when I left. I guess she would have stayed there until she was five and then been moved to another children’s home. No child care officer worth his salt would have sent her back to her mother’s home while the father/grandfather was still alive. Her mother of course had no such protection. Being an adult, she would have been deemed to know she could leave at any time.
In 1963 I had been on night duty over the weekend while the night nurse was on holiday so I had a sleeping day on Monday and a day off on Tuesday. It was Wimbledon week. I had been junior tennis champion at school for two years so I jumped at the chance to go and see the stars. Special outings were a rarity. For a start there was little money to spare and because the off duty was only done the week before, there was little opportunity to plan ahead. Sometimes a girl would swap her day off, with you and you could request a certain day off, but there was no guarantee that you would get it. I had managed to save a couple of quid so after sleeping for part of the morning, I caught the train to Wimbledon and walked to the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club. I sauntered through the gate and wandered around, looking for the best place to watch. First, I went to one of the outer courts and watched the British hope, Mike, Sangster, go out in the first round. Then I went onto the centre court and enjoyed a match there. I had to stand as there were no seats available but it was worth it. Tired but happy, I went back to the nursery.
‘It’s amazing,’ I told everybody at the supper table that evening. ‘I had no idea it was free.’
I decided to go back again the next day but this time, I went for the whole day. The queue was horrendous (there had been none the day before) and when I got to the gate, an official asked to see my ticket. I didn’t have a ticket so he pointed me in the right direction to get one. There was another horrendous queue but that didn’t put me off. It was the ticket price. At twenty-two shillings it was more than a sixth of my monthly wage! How I had managed to wander around the whole of the day before without being stopped I never knew. Perhaps it was because I looked so confident! Whatever the reason, it was my first and only excursion to that hallowed ground.