Yes Sister, No Sister

by Jennifer Craig

I tell her all about PTS and my friends as I stuff myself with the rich, moist fruitcake covered with marzipan and icing that Amma makes every year.

  ‘We go on the wards for one afternoon a week and look after real, live patients and one of them told me how much better he felt when I’d washed his face and hands and sat him up and he says I brought joy to his old soul with my smile and that I’m going to make a wonderful nurse.’

  ‘How nice,’ Amma murmurs as she peels boiled chestnuts for stuffing. ‘Go on.’

  I talk on, encouraged by her receptive noises, and eventually tell her about the row between Marie and Judith.

  ‘People get crotchety when they’re tired,’ Amma says, ‘and then they get on each other’s nerves. Don’t take it too seriously. They will probably learn to tolerate each other but if they don’t, don’t let it worry you. Keep being friends with them both and don’t get involved.’

  ‘I’ll try. Oh,’ I say suddenly, ‘I’ve got some presents to wrap but I haven’t any paper.’

  ‘There’s some in the press. Help yourself. I’ll put the iron on to heat.’

  Amma lifts up one lid of the Aga cooker and places a flat iron on the hot plate, as I go to the press to find some Christmas paper and string. Each piece of paper, used many times, is ironed for the next use, then carefully folded after the present is unwrapped.

  ‘I’ve got something to show you,’ Amma says as she unfolds a newspaper. There is a spread about the Leeds General Infirmary with photos of the hospital from the air. These clearly show the original Victorian three-storey blocks, which, held together by small, low connecting wings, look like a giant bird in flight. The red brick has been blackened by decades of industrial smoke so that the Infirmary stands as a dirty monument to the Industrial Revolution. A journalist has compared the place to St Pancras station in London. The slanted cone-shaped roofs are similar, but the station does not have the enormous windows running along each side of each wing.

  ‘It looks huge, doesn’t it?’ I say.

  Behind the main building are numerous extensions. Insertions of temporary huts into every available space give the impression of a town built without a planning department. On the outer perimeter lies the Nurses’ Home, which is also of blackened brick and has three wings, though not as tall as those of the hospital. Around this building is a high brick wall. I point to it.

  ‘This is where we’ll be living when we finish PTS.’

  ‘They’re going to make sure people can’t get in, aren’t they?’ Amma says and laughs. ‘Or out!’

  Christmas Day follows the family tradition of a walk by all those not involved in dinner preparation, greeting of non-residents’ arrival for dinner, pulling of crackers, feasting on turkey with roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts and eating plum pudding with the hope of finding one of the sixpences in it. Those who did not prepare dinner wash up while others walk. When all is clean and tidy, we gather in the drawing room to listen to the Queen’s speech, drink tea and open presents in the light of the tree candles. I do not have time to miss my own family until I go to bed. Once there I hide my tears, as I do not want to seem ungrateful.

  On the bus back to Hyde Terrace I bask in the residual warmth of my mother’s family and in the excitement I feel about going back. I do not realise that it will be 12 years before I have a Christmas off duty again.

  Up and Down greet us in Roundhay Hall as though we have not been away and the routine continues from where we left off. In the kitchen we learn to make beef tea, Benger’s food (from a partially digested fortified milk powder), custard, scrambled eggs and other dishes suitable for patients on a light diet. We have to explain the nutritional value and the calorie count of every dish we prepare to Up, who in a large, white chef’s apron, demonstrates how to make each dish before she supervises our efforts. She shows us how to set a tray.

  ‘Appearance is all important in a meal for the sick,’ she says. ‘Do not serve white fish, mashed potatoes, cauliflower with white sauce, on a white plate. Think about colour.’ She places a pale blue tray cloth on the tray and sets out cutlery. ‘Each piece of silver must be clean – no egg on the tines of the fork, no smears on the knife. Choose cheerful crockery and make the tray look attractive.’

  The kitchen is stocked with a large selection of cloths, serviettes and patterned crockery in a variety of shapes and sizes.

  ‘If a patient has a small appetite, present a small serving on a small plate. Do not overwhelm him with food nor serve tiny helpings on a large plate.’ She places a small vase of flowers on the tray, ‘There, doesn’t that look nice?’

  Judith and I are in the same session for cookery. ‘God knows why we’re learning all this,’ she says, ‘We’re never going to use it. Unless we become private nurses for the wealthy, of course.’

  We visit the waterworks, the sewerage plant, the salvage department and a block of flats that has been built to replace some of the slums. At the sewerage plant we have to be able to describe exactly what happens to the results of a visit to the lavatory from the moment it is flushed to the final emission of pure water. We are assured that the final product is pure water but as no one takes up the offer to sip it, the attendant drinks a glassful. ‘Tha’ shouldn’t be so squeamish,’ he says. He chuckles. ‘Especially if tha’s going to be nurses.’

  At the Leeds Salvage Department we watch how rubbish is sieved and separated into reusable piles. The smell makes me gag. We all hold handkerchiefs to our noses.

  ‘Good grief,’ I say to Judith, ‘How can anyone stand this stench long enough to work here? It’s making me feel sick.’

  ‘You wait,’ Judith says, ‘This is like roses compared with what we’re going to put up with if orthopaedics is anything to judge by.’

  Down takes us for bandaging, which she considers to be an art. We learn not only how to apply a ‘many-tailed bandage’ to an abdomen, but how to make one. For an average adult, strips of flannel, about four inches wide and a yard long, are overlapped then sewn together in the centre with a feather-stitch, to make a pad about 12 inches square. This pad is placed under the patient and the loose ends are then brought across the abdomen alternately. The last one is secured with a safety pin.

  Down loves to see a well-applied bandage. Parallel edges and even spaces between the overlaps seem to satisfy her need for order and neatness.

  ‘Come and look at this, nurses,’ she says when Sandy, who seems to have an aptitude for this task, does a beautiful job on my arm. ‘Here is a nurse with a sense of balance and order.’ Down has the beatific expression of one who has seen the Sistine Chapel for the first time. ‘See how perfectly parallel the edges are, and how neat this is. Not too tight and not too loose. Well done, Nurse Sandstone.’

  ‘She should come and see your room, Sandy,’ I say. ‘Not much sense of balance and order there, unless you call the heap of dirty clothes balanced.’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ is all Sandy can say.

  The most difficult bandage is a cappeline, or head bandage. Two bandages are used. One circles the head to secure the other that criss-crosses it. We are all dreading being asked to demonstrate one in our exams.

  We face three days of exams at the end of PTS. Roundhay Hall develops an atmosphere of hushed tension in contrast to the relative tranquillity we have enjoyed until now. Up and Down behave as though they are mothers entering their offspring in a Bonny Baby competition.

  ‘Nurse Talbot, please arrive for your examination with a cap that properly covers your hair,’ Down says to Jess.

  ‘Everyone bring a clean apron in case of accidents,’ says Up.

  ‘Four ward sisters will be here to examine you in the practical room and the kitchen on the first day and to take orals on the second. We want you to look as if you have learned something while you are here.’

  ‘Do try and behave like nurses, not like a pack of giggling school-girls.’

  Shortly after we arrive on the first day of exams, a taxi bearing four uniformed ward sisters draws up
. Up and Down greet them as if they are royalty, then escort three into the practical room and one into the kitchen. I can’t understand why they seem so nervous. Surely it is we, we who are to be examined, who should be tense.

  We sit in the classroom trying to study for the written exams. We do not have to wait long before three people are called into the practical room and four into the kitchen. I am one of the four. I have an hour to prepare a meal for a patient on a Sippy Two diet.

  First I make a beef consommé, which I leave simmering on a low light while I purée vegetables and put a junket to set. Then comes the moment to set a tray and serve my delicacies. I find a soup bowl and go to get my pan of consommé only to find, to my horror, that someone has turned up the light and it has boiled down to about a tablespoonful. I add boiling water to it and hope for the best. The examiner either does not notice how watery the soup is or else she has tasted so much that her palate is dulled.

  As either Up or Down are in the classroom we cannot compare notes until dinner time. Before we go into the dining room, Down calls me over and asks if I brought a spare apron. I tell her I have. She says, ‘Could I please borrow it? One of the sisters has had an accident.’

  I fetch the apron and go to the dining room. Everyone is there except Marie.

  ‘Marie is in the cloakroom blubbering,’ Wee Jess tells us. ‘She was my partner in the practical and she managed to thoak the thister with enema tholution.’

  We are all grinning. ‘What happened?’

  Wee Jess fills her mouth with sausage and says, ‘Marie had to thet an enema tray. Then she had to make up the thoap tholution and demonstrate how she would give it. So she holds up the enema can to expel air from the tube and before she could pinch off the tube, she’d thquirted the thister from head to toe.’

  Before we could give vent to our amusement, Down comes in with a sister, my size, in a clean apron, followed by Up with a red-eyed Marie. Marie collects her dinner and comes to sit down. No one knows what to say.

  ‘I’ve failed,’ she says. ‘Did Jess tell you what happened? I’ll have to do PTS all over again and then I won’t be trained when Charles is.’ She pushes away her plate.

  ‘What did Up say to you?’ Wee Jess asks. ‘I thaw her talking to you.’

  ‘She said I hadn’t to worry – it could happen to anyone. But I know I’ve failed. How can they pass someone who covers a sister with enema solution?’ She starts to cry again.

  Judith is choking on something and leaves suddenly. I can feel my abdomen tighten as I try not to laugh. If only Marie wasn’t so deadly serious, she could perhaps see the funny side of it, though, I admit, I might not think it funny if it had happened to me.

  The lengthy written exams are essay type with the use of English taken into consideration. We are asked such questions as:

  • Describe the anatomy and physiology of the liver; illustrate with a diagram.

  • How would you sterilise a) record syringe, b) artery forceps, c) gum elastic catheter, d) cotton balls.

  • If you have a supply of morphia grains ¼, how would you prepare an injection of morphia grains ?

  On our final day we are each interviewed by Up and Down, who give us our results. We all pass, including Marie. As usual, Judith is top. I do well in anatomy and about average in everything else. I am thrilled with my report that says, ‘Nurse Ross’s enthusiasm for nursing is only exceeded by her sense of vocation.’

  Up and Down come out to wave the bus goodbye as we make our last journey between Roundhay Hall and the Infirmary. We are to pack our trunks in Rothwell Terrace where they will be transported to the Nurses’ Home, and after two days off we are to report to the Nurses’ Home to start three months as ‘peaks’. At one time, probationers wore peaked caps and although the caps have long gone, the name remains. Our caps are the same throughout our training, though after peaking, we will be given caps with the LGI emblem embroidered on the brim. As in the army, our passage through the various stages of training is marked by additions to our uniform.

  ‘Well Blinks,’ I say on the bus. ‘So far so good. I wonder what is in store for us now.’

  Chapter 6

  SISTER O’DONNELLY, COMMONLY known as the Sod, not, we are to discover, without justification, meets us in the Nurses’ Home in her position as head Home Sister. We are assembled in the large hall off the entrance foyer when she appears. She is a tall, thin woman whose top half does not articulate with her bottom half. It is as if her hinges are loose so that she leans back slightly without the compensation of an abdominal thrust. Her right hand dangles down from her wrist and when she walks, this arm swings from the elbow across her body.

  ‘Good afternoon, narrses,’ she says. ‘It is my duty to welcome ye to the Narrses Home and to explain to ye the rules for living in it. Ye will be on the second floor of the north wing. I have here a list of the rooms ye have been allocated.’ Her thin, bony hands hold a clipboard that shakes slightly. ‘Yorr trunks are in yorr rooms. This afternoon yorr to unpack and leave yorr trunks outside yorr doors then they will be removed to the basement. Ye will not be needing them again until ye leave here for good, as in future, when ye move yorr room, ye will move yorr things in your drawers.’

  I bite my lips and clamp my hand to my mouth but unfortunately I meet Sheila’s eye. She lets out a snort of laughter and the rest of us, unable to hold it in, crumple into hysterical mirth.

  The Sod turns a shade of purple, stands up and shouts, ‘Indeed, ye are the rudest set of narrses it has been my misfortune to meet! I trust yorr training will teach ye some manners. I am going to leave. I shall return in five minutes and when I return I expect ye to have controlled yourselves.’ She marches out, her floppy right arm in furious motion.

  ‘I’ve wet my knickers,’ Wee Jess gasps. We dissolve again.

  Marie, the only one not in a state of hysteria, says ‘Oh for goodness sake, stop it! She’ll be back in a minute and I for one don’t want to get on the wrong side of her on our first day.’

  A few minutes later the Sod returns. By this time we have assumed some semblance of seriousness. ‘Now I will explain to ye the rules. Lights out is at 10.30. There is to be no noise after that time and everyone is to be in her own room. The doors are locked at 10pm. Ye may have one late pass a week until 11pm and one until 1am every month. No men are allowed in the building beyond the front foyer.’

  ‘We’re obviously not here to enjoy ourselves,’ mutters Judith.

  ‘Did ye say something, narrse?’ The Sod glowers.

  ‘I said, I should think not, Sister,’ Judith says quickly.

  The Sod looks suspicious but carries on. ‘Each corridor has a kitchen where ye may make yorrselves a hot drink. Milk is provided but ye must supply yorr own tea, cocoa, etc. Yorr to leave the kitchens clean and tidy.’

  Her voice, with its distinct Irish accent, drones on while I look around me. We are seated in rows taking up a small portion of a large room with a stage at one end boasting a grand piano. As windows are on both sides of the room I realise we are on the lower floor of one of the bedroom wings. I am gazing at the pattern of the parquet floor when the Sod’s voice comes back into my consciousness.

  ‘… day off, ye may have breakfast in bed as long as ye write the order in the book in time. This is a great privilege which can be denied for misbehaviour.’ She pauses as if to ensure that the message has sunk in. ‘Laundry: each Tuesday yorr to strip yorr beds and leave them to air with the window open. Put yorr sheets and towel into the dirty pillowcase and take it to the end of the corridor. Personal laundry is to be put in yorr bags and left at the end of the corridor on Mondays and Thursdays. Are there any questions?’ Her expression does not invite questions but some brave soul asks one.

  ‘What if we are having a day off on Tuesdays, Sister?’

  ‘The laundry is not collected until the afternoon so ye have until noon to strip yorr bed. Clean laundry is returned at that time.’ She looks around.

  ‘Yorr all on duty
tomorrow at 7.30 on the wards ye were on in PTS. At the end of yorr first year ye may live out but we discourage it as narrses who live out always seem very tired. Are there any more questions?’

  Silence. ‘Very well, ye may go.’

  ‘They don’t want us to live out as then they can’t control our lives,’ Judith says as we walk up to the second floor. ‘And have you seen a nurse who doesn’t look tired? It’s because we have to work like slaves that makes us tired, not living out.’

  Our rooms are identical but comfortable. Each has a radiator, so no more getting up shivering. A built-in wardrobe, with a cupboard at the top and drawers at the bottom, serves as the bed end. In addition there is a desk, a bedside table, an easy chair and a washbasin. Communal bathrooms are at each end of the corridor.

  We wander round from room to room to find out where our friends are before tackling our unpacking. Blinks is in the room opposite mine and after I’ve unpacked I go to visit her.

  ‘How are you doing, Blinks?’ I ask. She does not seem to have made much progress as her trunk is still almost full. ‘Can I give you a hand?’

  ‘Thanks.’ She grins at me. ‘I started to look at my photograph album and lost track of time. Here, you look at it while I finish.’

  I look through her album. The photos are neatly pasted in and each is labelled in white ink on the black paper. There are many of family groups taken in a large garden.

  ‘Is this your house?’ I ask Blinks. She glances at the album and nods.

  ‘It looks wonderful,’ I say, admiring the gabled stone house with roses climbing around the door. ‘These must be your sisters. They look nice.’

  ‘No, they’re a pain. Let me show you my favourite photo of my father. Here, dressed in cricket whites. Isn’t he handsome?’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘He’s a doctor. A gynaecologist and obstetrician. All his patients love him, he’s so gentle and kind.’

  ‘So that’s where you get it from,’ I say. Blinks blushes.