by Pam Weaver
It was 11.15 p.m. and I was asked to get up and help the night nurse get them cleaned up and put to bed. If I close my eyes I can still heard poor Richard’s plaintive cry as we bathed and deloused them. It had to be done. Head lice spread like wildfire in nurseries and we had to protect the other children as well. We began by combing the boys’ hair over the sink. Some of the lice fell into the sink and we washed them away down the plug hole. They weren’t always easy to see because head lice adapt their own colour to the colour of the hair. The nits, or eggs, cement themselves to the hair and their favourite place is around the ears. After we’d got rid of as many as we could, we washed their hair using soap. We didn’t rinse it but tied it round with a towel for about ten minutes while we gave them each a bath. This gave the nits a chance to swell.
Eddie had been wearing a stinking nappy and a vest full of holes. I was about to bin them when the night nurse stopped me.
‘They’ll have to be boiled.’
I couldn’t believe it. Why? They weren’t even fit for the rag bag.
‘He can’t possibly wear them again,’ I protested. ‘I wouldn’t even put them in a dog basket.’
‘When the case comes to court,’ she said curtly, ‘the child has to appear exactly as we found him. It won’t help his case if we take him clean and well dressed. The judge has to see the state he was in.’
‘Thank goodness we don’t have to keep the body lice too,’ I retorted.
Once they’d had their baths, we set to and combed their hair to get rid of the lice. We used a special steel comb for the purpose and parted the hair, combing down from the scalp to the ends. We found plenty of nits and a few adult lice which had escaped the soaping. We rinsed their hair and then put a little Suleo-M onto their heads and thoroughly massaged it in. The Suleo-M didn’t actually kill the nits but any remaining nits which hatched out would feed on the scalp and die of Suleo-M poisoning.
The children were exhausted, traumatised and hungry. As quickly as we could we did what we had to and by the time we’d finished, the brothers were changed out of all recognition.
‘Who’s a handsome little boy?’ I asked Eddie as I gave him a cuddle.
He was too. He had blond curly hair and periwinkle blue eyes. His brother had straight hair but I was willing to lay odds on the fact that he looked more attractive in his nursery issue pyjamas than he had done for many a long month. After a light meal and another drink, Eddie cried himself to sleep even though Richard was in the bed right next to him. They were such lovely boys, it was hard to believe what had happened to them. It was a good job Mrs Thompson acted on her instinct. Had she left it much longer, the boys might have been irrevocably damaged by lack of fluids.
About three weeks later, it broke my heart to dress Eddie in that same holey vest and brown nappy again. They were thoroughly clean now, but he looked awful and young as he was, he knew it. Richard had come to the nursery in a shredded tee-shirt and no underwear. The child care officer took him in a pair of trousers to spare his dignity but he had to be presented to the court exactly as he was taken into care. At the end of the hearing, the children’s parents were to be prosecuted for child neglect so Eddie and Richard came back to the nursery. My life was full of expectation but their lives seemed bleak. Eventually, the brothers were fostered, long term, by a loving couple. When I look at photographs I took of them playing in the garden together, I can only hope they have no memory of their terrible start in life.
In June of that year, Hilary and I went to Lido Di Jesolo, Italy, on a package holiday. No one bats an eyelid to go on one now, but in 1965 they were still a relatively new innovation. We travelled for two days by coach because I was too scared to fly. Our coach drivers were Herman and Alberto and our courier was a man called Georgio. He thought he was God’s gift to women and spent his time flirting with a buxom blonde in the group. Most of our party were what we termed ‘old people’, but probably they were no more than fortyish. We travelled for almost forty-eight hours, taking regular comfort stops on the way – there were no facilities on the coach – and when we were nearing our destination, Georgio passed round the hotel brochure, saying, ‘Please, English people, do not pull the chain in toilet too hard. A little touch, little, little or it doesn’t work, eh? You may be in the hotel, or you may be in the annex.’
There was a little worried murmuring. People looked at each other anxiously. Nobody had said anything about an annex. When we arrived, our worst fears proved to be correct. We were in the annex! It had been built as staff quarters and was satisfactory as such, but as hotel guest rooms it was totally inadequate. Hilary and I had booked a twin room with a shower. Our beds were foot to foot with no room at all on either end. We had a shower but if you used it, Hilary’s bed got soaked and to open the wardrobe, you had to walk right into the room and then open the door because it got wedged against my bed. I had long hair and hadn’t been able to brush it for almost two days so more than anything else I wanted to get my hairbrush out of my suitcase.
We were annoyed by the accommodation and talked about complaining. The rest of the coach party were furious. As we unpacked, the volume of noise in the corridor rose to an angry crescendo.
‘I’ve been married to my husband for twenty years,’ one woman was shouting at Georgio. ‘I’ve never slept foot to foot with him, and I’m not going to start now!’
‘We demand another room, in the hotel, now!’
In the distance, we heard a loud clanking sound and then someone shouted, ‘And the bloody toilets don’t work either!’
Georgio, overwhelmed by angry guests, promised to do his best. He said he would call the Overland rep, but by now it was 11.30 p.m. and everyone was too tired to put up much of a fight. To add to the problem, it seemed none of the rest of the hotel staff seemed to speak English.
As Hilary and I lay exhausted in our beds, we decided not to let the terrible room spoil our holiday. After all, we hadn’t come all this way for the room, we’d come for the sun, the sea and the boys! That night, to compound our misery, there was a terrific storm. It was so awful, I was convinced we were going to die there, sleeping foot to foot in a hard Italian bed but when morning came and the sun was high, everything looked a lot better. A few of our fellow guests managed to change their rooms but the majority of us stayed where we were. We later discovered that the management had overbooked. Every other week a party of German tourists came and to ease the situation, the Overland coach party was put in the annex.
‘When the English peoples come,’ one waiter confided in us, just before it was time for us to leave for home, ‘we no speak-a the English.’
Now at last we understood why it had been so difficult to get things changed when we’d first arrived. The hotel itself was built right on the beach. It was a tower block and seemed very impressive. Although we were in the annex, we were allowed to use all the hotel facilities and the food was wonderful. However, in 1967, just two years after we were there, the hotel hit the headlines when it had to be evacuated. A massive crack had appeared in the building and eventually it was deemed too unsafe to remain. It was less than three years old when they pulled it down.
Hilary and I found the boys and had dates aplenty. In ten days, we had more than fourteen dates. Sometimes we had to dodge one group to go out with another. We had never been so popular or had so much fun.
We never saw Herman and Alberto again until it was time to start the journey home but we saw quite a lot of Georgio. He had a habit of taking an early morning swim before he took up his duties … or at least, that’s what we all thought until I saw what I saw. I wished I had a movie camera but they were luxuries the likes of us could never afford. There were no mobile phones to take short videos in those days either, more’s the pity. It happened one morning when I was on the beach. Georgio came out of the hotel in his swimming trunks. I watched him walk towards the water. He looked around to see if anybody was watching but he didn’t notice me. Then I saw him bend to the water and wet his
hand. He flicked a few water droplets onto his chest and then strutted back up the beach towards a group of pretty girls coming out of the hotel. So much for his early morning swim!
The Italians were deliciously outrageous. When I refused his advances, one waiter told me, ‘Tomorrow, Roberto, he getta the sack.’
‘Why?’
‘Because tomorrow, the ’otel guests complain, the soup it is watery because Roberto, he cry in the soup …’
Another date insisted on called me ‘Ham’, which sent Hilary and me into peals of laughter. ‘Do not fight me, Ham, kiss-a, kiss me.’
Our ‘steady’ dates were two Italian airmen called Raoul and Gianni. They took us to hideaway bistros off the tourist track and best of all, they paid for us! Needless to say, we both fell hopelessly in love. I was with Gianni, who was very handsome, but a bit vain. On our last night we all went to a dance and on the way home we lingered on the beach to say our goodbyes. Hilary and Raoul wanted to be alone, which left Gianni and me together. He wanted to make love but I refused. I was convinced that a holiday romance wasn’t such a good idea. After all, I’d never see him again. He immediately fell into a huge sulk and almost in tears he asked, ‘You no like-a my body?’
‘No, no,’ I protested. ‘It’s not that.’
‘What wrong my body?’
What indeed? He was gorgeous. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your body.’
‘Then why you no like?’
How could I explain that in a day or two, he and Raoul would be courting other tourists without a second thought for us? Our parting was soured by his bad mood but up until then, I had had the best time.
As our holiday came to an end, I knew I would have to go back to the same old, some old and yet I had grown up a lot in Italy. I had enjoyed being romanced and although I knew a lot of it was only flannel, I felt different about myself. I was a nursery nurse. I had proved myself and succeeded, but I was also attractive and fun to be with.
Some of our coach party had a miserable time. They had allowed the dreadful rooms to spoil everything for them. On the way back, they even tried to get us to sign a petition in the coach. The petition demanded a full refund. While Hilary and I agreed that the accommodation was far from what we expected, our holiday had been so much more than a hotel room. We had been to Venice and had a gondola ride. We’d visited beautiful churches, we’d danced the night away and we’d sampled food we’d only ever read about in books. Life in the nursery had taught me to forget the things I couldn’t change and make the most of every opportunity to enjoy life. Above all, I allowed plenty of space to have a laugh and some fun.
Chapter 11
Jackie Jordan was a lovely little boy although perhaps not the brightest. His mother was what people called ‘tuppence short of a shilling’ and was herself living in a home. Before the birth of her son, Jackie’s mother had a certain amount of freedom in that she was allowed to go outside on group outings. On one such outing, she disappeared for a while in a large park. After searching and calling for ages, it was with great relief that the staff eventually found her, apparently none the worse for her experience. However as time went on, they noticed she was putting on more and more weight. A doctor’s examination proved that she was pregnant. She had no idea what had happened to her and her labour was difficult because she was frightened and upset. Even after she’d had baby Jackie, she didn’t apparently comprehend that he was hers. My friend Ros was very fond of Jackie and even though making special relationships with children was frowned upon, at Christmas she went all the way to Hamleys toy shop in Regent Street to get a special teddy bear for him.
The child care officers had horrendous caseloads, so when a child like Jackie Jordan was in a home, well looked after and safe, he was a long way down the pecking order. They would of necessity have to spend their working days helping children in far more hazardous situations, so children like Jackie had little hope of being adopted. Besides, there was too much going against him. He was mixed race and his mother was in a mental institution, unaware she had even had a child. Jackie might be lucky enough to be fostered but with a background like his, he was more likely to spend the rest of his childhood in a home. It seemed grossly unfair and of course, it was. Perhaps if the child care officers had had a lighter case load, or people adopted a child for who he or she was and didn’t look into the background too closely, things might have been different, but in saying that, it’s obvious that neither of those things was likely to happen. Jackie’s mother had been taken advantage of through no fault of her own and prospective parents have every right to have all the information available to make an informed choice about the child they want to adopt. For children like Jackie, things did look bleak but he had a loveable personality. I have no idea what happened to him and feeble as it may sound, I can only hope that despite his circumstances, he made a go of his life. I wasn’t to know back then but because the child care services were moving into a new era, there was every likelihood that Jackie would be fostered, and because he was such a charmer, I’m sure he would have made the best of every opportunity.
Life was varied to say the least. We all had a terrifying few weeks in May. The night nurse reported footsteps outside one of the bathroom windows in the middle of the night. No one took much notice until a few days later, when someone else reported the same thing. Now we were too scared to go on night duty. A contingency plan was drawn up in case of a break-in or an attack and the police mounted extra patrols of the area. I was on night duty at the time. Occasionally I’d see a torch in the grounds late at night, and after the initial panic, I’d be relieved to realise it was only a police officer walking the grounds. But things went from bad to worse. After several nights when I reported footsteps, they stopped altogether. Life returned to normal … until they started all over again.
Night duty was always very busy. We began at nine and there were baby feeds to do at ten. The washing had to be sorted out. Anything left in the dryers had to be taken out and folded. There was ironing and pressing to do on the upstairs landing. I was once so tired, I nodded off as I was using the presser and touched the side with my forearm. I was certainly wide awake then and I bore the scar of a long burn on my arm for several days to come!
At around midnight it was time for a meal. The day staff left the night nurse a dinner on a plate but it was often inedible. After hanging around all day, the only way of heating it was on a plate over a saucepan of boiling water. Sometimes when I saw the congealed gravy and the grey potatoes, I almost lost the will to live. I hate wasting food, but it had to go down the toilet. If I put it in the bin and Mrs Harrison saw it, there would be hell to pay.
After my meal, I would have the mending to do. That was the worst, because if you nodded off then, you could run yourself through with the needle. I had plenty of puncture wounds because it was too hard doing close work at that time of night. One night a child had woken up and wanted to go to the toilet. I sat her on the potty and after she’d been and was back in bed all tucked up, I went downstairs to the sluice room to empty the pot. I knew the police were in the area so I wasn’t unduly worried but when the sluice room door closed behind me, I heard the footsteps and my heart rate went through the roof. It was only as I stayed to rinse the potty that I realised they were getting louder and yet staying in the same place. It was raining very hard and the doorbell rang. Someone was out with a late pass. I hurried to let her in and although she was soaked and wanted nothing more than to get to her room and change, I persuaded her to come to the sluice room with me. We listened and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realise that what we heard wasn’t footsteps at all. We opened the window and timed the ‘footsteps’ with the drips of rain from a broken guttering onto a part of the corrugated iron roof. What a relief and what a laugh, although I don’t think anyone wanted to admit what had happened. We told the other members of staff and Matron but I don’t think she informed the police. Too embarrassed, I suppose. Anyway, after a couple of nights, the po
lice eased off their patrols and nothing more was said.
I had been used to a pay phone at my first nursery and no phone calls or visitors at all where I trained. Here we had the use of the phone on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. I don’t recall that we were allowed to telephone out but we could give the number to someone and ask them to call us. Matron Harrison was very strict about phone usage. It went out on the jack outside her office at 7.30 p.m. and she took it back at 9.30 p.m., but oh, it was bliss to be able to talk to a friend! My mother still didn’t have a phone, so we relied on letters, but Hilary quite often phoned me, and the odd boyfriend or three did as well.
I usually met them at dances or on my days off. Nothing serious, but I enjoyed being taken to the pictures or for a meal. Occasionally I would be taken out for the day. Johnny comes to mind. He had a wicked sense of humour. We once ate lunch in Bentalls’ in Kingston upon Thames. I can’t remember what I ate, but he had something with salad. He ate half the meal and then complained that he had found a dead caterpillar on the lettuce. There was a terrific hoo-ha and he got another lunch and didn’t have to pay for the first one. Of course, you’ve guessed it: the dead caterpillar was his! He’d found it on a leaf on the way into the restaurant. Johnny and I split up when he went to university.
Then there was Humph. His name was Humphrey and he had a small sports car. He was quite attractive until his sports car had to go back because he couldn’t keep up the payments! How heartless we are when we’re young …
Maureen had a phone call one Wednesday night. Matron was rather annoyed and told the caller to ring back the next night. She hung up. The caller rang back immediately and said she was Maureen’s mother and insisted that she speak to Maureen. We were all watching TV when Matron came in to tell Maureen she had a phone call.