by Joan Hart
‘But I live in South Yorkshire. I’ll never get there in time,’ I gasped.
I felt sick because I knew that, whatever I did, I’d never be able to reach her and say goodbye. Instead, I sat at my desk in a daze, numb and unsure about what to do. Within the hour, Bill had called back to say that my mother had passed away. I wandered from the treatment room back into my office and closed the door. Frank heard what had happened and went to see Ken Deeming. Moments later, Mr Deeming knocked at my door.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, wrapping a comforting arm around my shoulder. His kindness made me break down even more because I’d felt so utterly helpless. I hadn’t been there when she’d needed me most.
‘You stop here while I go and ring Peter,’ Ken suggested.
A short while later, Peter arrived to drive me back home.
‘Our Ann, and Tony – someone will have to tell them,’ I panicked.
‘It’s all right,’ Peter said. ‘I’ve already made the call.’
Mum’s death hit us all. We’d not always seen eye to eye, but she was my mum and I loved her. I was glad I’d made contact all those years before. Despite the numerous rows and her obvious disapproval of my marriage to Peter, I knew deep down that she’d always loved me. I’d also like to think that I’d made her proud.
17
Rubber Gloves
Despite the pit disaster, life carried on, although the mood at Bentley and the surrounding pits remained sombre and never seemed to recover. The men realised that the job they did day in, day out was both gruelling and dangerous, and the derailment of the paddy train reminded them just how much it was.
The years passed by, and with them came more rules and regulations than you could shake a stick at, and soon the 1980s were upon us. A new decade had begun, and with it, supposedly, new opportunities. Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party were voted into power in 1979, and the country had its first-ever female Prime Minister. Where once there had been talk of trade unions and strikes, now there was talk of entrepreneurial spirit, opportunities and greed. To be honest, I tried not to get involved with politics because I was far too busy concentrating on my job and caring for my men. I’d often hear grumbles from the miners about the way the country was being run.
Despite the change in the political landscape, something else was soon on everyone’s minds. There was a new disease and threat to public health called HIV – human immunodeficiency virus – that we medical professionals were being educated on. We were told it could lead to something called acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS.
The disease brought with it a kind of mass hysteria in the media and new medical safety practices, namely the introduction of rubber gloves. Soon, they became the norm, but every time I was called to examine a miner I wouldn’t use rubber gloves because I knew just how sensitive they were about them. It’d taken me years to gain their trust and I didn’t want to offend them. It was a strange situation because I’d insist that all the first aiders wore them when working underground.
It’s hard to explain, but back then there was still a lot of ignorance, and people didn’t understand or want to know anything about AIDS, especially not in a pit environment. The miners were very traditional and old-fashioned, and they couldn’t fathom what on earth this ‘strange new disease’ had to do with them. I knew that if I’d worn rubber gloves, they’d each have taken it as a slight on both their character and their sexuality.
However uncomfortable they felt speaking about it, I knew I’d have to tackle it in the end, because rumours had started flying around that someone at the pit had been diagnosed with HIV. I had a word with the NCB’s education and health department, which said it’d make the necessary arrangements, and days later we set up a video camera in the middle of the medical centre. It was a big, black, cumbersome thing, which took up an awful lot of room, but I knew a safety film was needed not only to quash rumours, but also to educate the men that the gloves were there for their own protection.
‘What’s all this, then? Have we got ITV in?’ one of the lads chirped as soon as he saw the camera in the middle of the room.
‘No, we’re making a safety film, so don’t be so cheeky. Now, clear off!’ I scolded, shooing him out of the door.
I wasn’t usually one for make-up, but that day I decided to make a little bit of an effort for my film début. In fact, I’d dolled myself up to the nines. Wearing my trademark navy-blue nurses’ uniform, I sat down behind my desk and cleared my throat as the video recorder whirred.
‘You may have noticed that we have introduced vinyl gloves in all of the underground first-aid boxes. New legislation has been brought in, whereby everyone in the medical profession now has to wear rubber gloves to stop cross-contamination of blood or other bodily fluids …’ I spoke in my poshest voice. With my eyes still on the camera, I walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a file with Prevention of cross-infection marked in big letters across the front to hammer the message home. Then I pulled out a pair of vinyl gloves and dangled them in front of the camera.
‘So, you see, we need to wear them, not only to protect ourselves, but also to protect you because your health and safety in the workplace is paramount,’ I finished.
The health-and-safety official waved his hand and called ‘cut’. It was, as they say in showbiz, a ‘wrap’. It was hardly Hollywood standards, but the 15-minute film said everything it needed to say without being patronising, and with the emphasis on safety. I knew that if the men understood the reasons behind it, then they’d accept it. We screened it on the two televisions, one in the checks room and one in the canteen, so I knew all the men had seen it.
Over the next few months, Peter’s health continued to go downhill. It had been 10 years since his heart operation and I worried what the future held. In particular, I fretted about how I’d get him to hospital in an emergency.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ I announced one morning as we sat at the breakfast table.
Peter was busy smearing margarine onto a piece of toast.
‘Oh, what’s that?’ he asked, without looking up.
‘I was thinking it’s about time I took my driving test.’
Peter stopped what he was doing and dropped the knife down on his plate, which clattered against the porcelain.
‘But you’re 51!’ he cried.
‘It doesn’t matter. Besides, I think it’d be handy if I could drive. It’d take some of the pressure off you.’
Peter thought for a moment and nodded his head. ‘Suppose so. When do you think you’ll start?’
‘No time like the present,’ I said, putting my dirty plate in a bowl in the sink.
I didn’t want to tell Peter the real reason, that one day I feared I’d have to get him to hospital quickly in the middle of the night. If I couldn’t drive then we’d be stranded, waiting for an ambulance.
I asked around, and through the miners I heard that a former deputy from Hatfield pit called Barry had set himself up as a driving instructor. I rang Barry and arranged my first lesson.
‘If you can teach me to drive, then you deserve a medal!’ I laughed.
Barry was patient but determined, and, after months of driving around the streets of Doncaster, I finally put in for my test. He kept his fingers crossed that I didn’t get a particular examiner, who, Barry reckoned, had it in for all the students he’d taught.
‘He’s a right so and so,’ Barry grumbled.
I thought he’d been exaggerating, until the day arrived and I did indeed get Mr So and So. Barry grimaced, his eyes rolling back in his head when the man approached the car. As I prepared to set off, I decided to try to charm my way into the examiner’s affections.
‘Would you like a Polo mint?’ I asked. ‘It’s just that I suck them all the time – it helps with my concentration.’
The examiner turned sharply towards me in his seat with an appalled look on his face.
‘That’s bribery!’ he said.
I knew then tha
t I was doomed.
I began my test along Doncaster High Street, but as I approached a pedestrian crossing, a man, who I’m sure must have been a plant, kept stepping on, off and back on it again.
‘I wish he’d make his bloody mind up!’ I huffed, not knowing whether to stop or start.
But the examiner didn’t possess a sense of humour.
‘That’s harassing the public!’ he sniffed as he made a note against the piece of paper on his clipboard.
We carried on further up the road, where I started to slow down. The examiner turned to me. ‘Mrs Hart, the lights are on green.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, pulling the car to a halt, ‘but they’re going to change any minute, and I don’t want to be caught in the middle of the road.’
Unsurprisingly, I failed, so Barry put me forward for another test six weeks later, this time in Gainsborough.
‘Just drive as though you’re on your test with Barry,’ the second examiner advised. Unlike the first, he was a kind and patient man. He gave me enough confidence to pass.
Of course, the miners had thought it was hilarious that I was taking my test at such a late age.
‘Clear the roads, lads! Sister Hart’s taking her test again this afternoon!’ one had teased.
‘Good luck, Sister. And don’t forget yer Highway Code!’ another had added.
‘Listen,’ I’d told them. ‘If you see me coming down that lane later on my bike, then don’t say a word because I will have failed. But if you see me driving down the pit lane in my car then you can all bow!’
With my driving test passed, I drove my bright red Ford Fiesta into work later that morning. So, you can imagine my delight when I turned the corner to find a group of miners all lined up, clapping, cheering and bowing towards me.
‘I did it, lads!’ I said, waving at them through the open window. ‘I only went and passed.’
‘Flaming hell, Sister Hart’s behind the wheel!’ they shouted as laughter rang out in the air.
After that, I began to drive myself into work, which took some of the pressure off Peter.
Not long afterwards, I was sitting in the medical centre when the phone rang. It was one of the deputies calling – from underground.
‘Is that Sister?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got a man down here who’s got his finger trapped in some machinery. It looks right nasty.’
‘Are the first-aid men there?’
‘Yes, but its t’miner, you see. He dunt want anyone else treating him. That’s why I’m calling – he only wants you.’
In other circumstances I would have felt flattered, but it actually made me feel more nervous. I’d had the same situation before. I’d travelled underground to treat a man, only for all the big, burly miners to stand back and wait to see what I’d do. It made me anxious because I was only human and sometimes they expected me to perform miracles. In reality, all I could do was put my nursing training into practice. I donned my overalls, pit boots and hard hat, and ran to collect my metal checks, lamp, battery pack and self-rescuer. All kitted up, I hopped inside the empty cage as the banksman pulled down the chain-mail shutter, sealing me in.
‘Ay up, Sister. You got another one?’ he asked as he slammed closed the outer metal door.
‘’Fraid so,’ I cried as the cage lowered and I descended into the darkened pit shaft.
As soon as I reached the pit bottom, I was greeted by one of the workmen, who took me to the miner, a lad called Simon. By the time I arrived, one of the first aiders had already managed to free him from the chock. Somehow, he’d sliced the top of his finger off, right down to the first knuckle on his index finger.
‘It’s all right, everybody. Sister’s here,’ a man called out in the darkness.
I felt the responsibility weigh heavily on my shoulders.
‘Now then, love. What have you done?’ I asked as I kneeled down next to Simon. I began to examine the stump of his finger.
‘I’m not sure, Sister. I got it caught, up there,’ he said, gesturing with his other hand. ‘It all happened so fast … it’s bloody killing me. Why, is it bad?’
Although he was a big, tough miner, I realised that Simon was in a lot of pain.
‘Listen, love. I’m going to put this mask on your face. It’ll release something called Entonox, which will help with the pain.’
He nodded gratefully as I unpacked the equipment and placed it by the side of him.
‘Has your wife had any children?’ I asked, trying to take Simon’s mind off his nasty injury.
He seemed a little baffled but nodded. I stretched a piece of elastic around the back of his head and anchored the mask over both his nose and mouth.
‘Well, she’s probably had something like this because it’s also called gas and air,’ I said.
Simon tried to smile but I knew I’d have to act fast. I grabbed a clean dressing, wrapped it around the stump and held it tight inside my hand, applying pressure to the wound. When someone suffers a traumatic amputation the capillaries tend to shut down, so, although you get some blood and fluid loss, it’s not as much as you’d expect. However, I knew the real risk was that the patient could go into shock, so I watched Simon like a hawk, checking all his vital signs. As the Entonox took hold and relieved his pain, I examined his half finger. Some blood had oozed through the dressing and there was a bit on my overalls, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. His finger had been found and loaded into a tub of ice, but it had macerated and so was useless to him. Of course, I’d completely forgotten my safety talk about vinyl gloves throughout all of this. The first aiders loaded him onto a stretcher, and I walked alongside, clutching his hand, as we brought Simon back up to the pit top.
‘I’ll be all right from here,’ he insisted, climbing off the stretcher onto his feet. ‘I’ll walk t’rest of way to t’ambulance.’
The pit ambulance was waiting, so Simon and I climbed in and we made our way to hospital. By the time we arrived I was soaked in his blood because it had seeped out through my ungloved fingers and dripped down into my lap. But the staff in A&E knew me well, so we were attended to almost immediately by a staff nurse.
‘Could you both take a seat there,’ she said, directing us over towards a bed. She pulled the drapes around us for privacy, and knelt down to take a better look at the wound. I was still clutching Simon’s hand because I was frightened to let go until she’d brought a clean dressing to put over it.
‘Can I have a look?’ she asked.
I uncurled my fingers just enough to let her see what he’d done. She peered at the open wound before straightening up again.
‘Have you got the other bit?’ she asked, pointing to the tip of her own finger.
Unlike the other sister, who I’d once had words with, this nurse was both polite and extremely efficient.
‘No, because by the time I reached him it was all mangled up. They’d placed it in ice but it’d macerated. He’d managed to free himself from the machine, so I gave him some Entonox.’
‘I see,’ she said, nodding her head. ‘Right, I’ll just be a minute. I’ll just nip and get some gloves and a clean dressing for you.’ With that, she disappeared off behind the curtains.
Simon turned towards me with a puzzled look on his face.
‘What does she want gloves for?’ he asked, a hint of offence apparent in his voice.
‘Well, because that’s what they do now – they all wear gloves.’
But the longer we sat there, the more I realised just how much the nurse had offended him.
‘Look,’ I said, trying to explain. ‘You know that film we did about cross-infection with blood and other bodily fluids?’
Simon nodded.
‘Well, this is to do with AIDS, and other things such as hepatitis.’
Simon listened and glanced down at my hand wrapped around his – the blood had covered us both.
‘But you haven’t got gloves on, Sister.’
I’d been caught bang to rights.
�
��Well, no, that’s true, Simon,’ I said, trying to search for the right words. ‘That’s because I know you. But they see hundreds of patients here, so they don’t know you or your background like I do.’
He peered up at the cubicle curtain still drawn around the hospital bed.
‘Well, can’t you tell her that then, Sister? The bloody funny bugger!’
I tried not to laugh.
‘Of course I will, but she has to wear them, Simon. It’s her job; otherwise she’d get into trouble.’
He sighed and looked down at his hand where the missing digit had been. ‘Okay. It’s all right, I suppose, if you say so, Sister.’
Simon shrugged his shoulders as though he didn’t care, but I could tell that he did. Although he wasn’t entirely happy, he allowed the gloved-up nurse to treat him. He understood that she had a job to do. She expertly dressed and wrapped a bandage around his wound, and he was given an appointment to return to have a skin graft. Other than that, there was very little else anyone could do.
On my way back, I called in at the garage where Simon’s wife worked to tell her what had happened.
‘Oh,’ she replied.
‘He asked if you’d fetch him some fags in later,’ I told her, relaying his message. But she seemed less than impressed by her husband’s request.
‘I will, but he’ll have to wait until the end of my shift.’
I tried not to laugh. Simon might have lost a finger, but his wife had been furious that he’d bothered her at work to ask for a smoke!
The whole incident reminded me just how complex these men could be. They were tough on the outside, but scratch just below the surface and they were deeply sensitive souls. I’d seen it when their colleagues had been injured. The miners would try their best to disguise their fear, but it was always there. Some of the men treated me like God and thought I could perform miracles. Sadly, I couldn’t.
This hit home a few months later, when my father was ill. I visited Dad every weekend, but his health had begun to deteriorate. He had started with a nasty cough that refused to go away. His GP insisted that it was nothing to worry about, but I suspected otherwise. Dad visited the doctor time and time again, but he refused to do tests. Frustrated at the lack of answers, I called a family meeting and suggested we all donate money to pay for him to see a specialist. Dad’s cough had worsened, and he was struggling to swallow. The specialist carried out a bronchoscopy, using a device that looked inside his oesophagus and lungs. A subsequent biopsy indicated our worst fear – it was lung cancer. He was referred for radiotherapy treatment at Sheffield’s Weston Park Hospital but, tragically, the cancer was already advanced. He was admitted to hospital as his condition worsened, but he hated anyone fussing over him. The day before he died, I realised the end was near, but, Dad being Dad, he was more concerned about me than himself.