Yes Sister, No Sister Read online

  ‘What makes them think we will survive a nuclear bomb?’ Sandy says.

  ‘And what makes them think that the water in the Wharfe won’t be radioactive?’ We queue for a cup of coffee before sitting down again.

  ‘How on earth can we move a ward full of patients anyway? What in, for starters?’ Sandy says.

  ‘And there aren’t tents big enough.’

  We are shown slides of nuclear bombs going off including pictures of survivors of Hiroshima. By the end of the day we are all thoroughly depressed.

  ‘Let’s go to the Golden Lion,’ someone suggests. Most of us go to the hospital’s local pub where, after a couple of beers, we cheer up as we begin to see the inanity of the day’s exercise.

  ‘Oh, we’ll all go together when we go, all suffused in an incandescent glow,’ we sing from one of Tom Lehrer’s songs.

  The next day is better. One of the sisters describes her tour of hospitals in the United States and Canada where she learned how they organise nursing care. In addition to her technical descriptions, she shows slides of the places she visited. Sandy and I are particularly impressed with those of Vancouver in British Columbia.

  ‘Hey look at those mountains, Sandy. We could ski on our days off if we lived there,’ I say.

  ‘Even better, look at the sea. Isn’t it beautiful? We could sunbathe on the beach.’

  ‘It looks cleaner than grotty old Leeds.’ I think about the times when the patients’ counterpanes are covered in soot after being out on the balcony for a couple of hours.

  ‘That hospital looks nice. What’s it called? St Paul’s?’ Sandy leans forward trying to read the name on the building.

  ‘Maybe we should think about emigrating, Sandy. There’s lots of advertisements for nurses to come to Canada.’

  ‘Not just yet, Jen. We’ve only been ward sisters for a few months and I’m not tired of it yet, are you?’

  I don’t answer but I think about her question. No, I’m not tired of my ward, but I can foresee the day when I will be. Now that I have made the changes I had imagined, now that I am confident about what I am doing, the routine is becoming just that, routine.

  One morning while doing my usual round, I go into the sterilizing room. The night staff boils up the long forceps with their container. Once sterilized, carbolic is poured into the container to keep the forceps sterile. For some reason, nurses are loath to fill the container, but put about one inch of carbolic in the bottom, which means that the shaft of the forceps is unsterile. I have mentioned this so often that it is known as one of my quirks, along with opening the windows in the morning to air the ward. Today there is an inch of carbolic. I lose my temper and give Joan a histrionic display of fury.

  ‘Look at this! How many times have I gone on about this before? It simply shows no concept of sterility. I feel like bringing back the night staff.’ As I say the words I remember the Dragon summoning a night nurse from her bed to clean a trolley. Am I becoming like her? I am mortified. ‘Oh my god, I’m getting like the Dragon. Sorry, Joan.’

  I remember Judith saying that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Is the power I hold as a ward sister going to my head? I wish Judith were around to discuss these issues with. I talk to Sandy of course, but she is a cheerful soul who dismisses anything philosophical with, ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  Stewart is doing a round. We come to a large woman who is recovering from pneumonia. ‘How are you, Mrs Bradley?’ Stewart asks.

  ‘Ah feel a bit poorly, Doctor.’

  Stewart listens to her chest. ‘Your chest is clear now. Do you have pain anywhere?’

  ‘Nay.’

  ‘How much are you getting up?’

  Mrs Bradley shakes her head. ‘Ah don’t feel like getting up, Doctor. Ah feel better in’t bed.’

  ‘You must get up more, Mrs Bradley. I know it’s hard but it’s time to get going.’

  As we move to the next bed, Stewart says to me, ‘Get her going Jen or she’ll be here for ever. There’s nothing wrong with her now.’

  After Stewart has left, I go to Mrs Bradley and say, ‘Right, let’s have you up to walk to the bathroom.’

  ‘Ah don’t feel like it, Sister.’

  ‘The doctor says you have to be up. Where are your slippers?’ I help her out of bed then hold her arm as she reluctantly walks down the ward to the toilet.

  ‘Come along, Mrs. Bradley, you have to do better than this or you’ll never go home. You just need to make more effort.’ My voice is sharp.

  I leave her in the toilet and ask a nurse to keep an eye on her. A few minutes later the nurse comes to me in alarm. ‘Sister, come quick. Mrs Bradley has collapsed.’

  I rush to the bathroom. I can hardly get into the toilet as Mrs Bradley is lying against the door. ‘Go and phone a porter urgently to bring tools to take the door off,’ I order the nurse. I climb over the partition from the next toilet but there is nothing I can do. Mrs Bradley is dead.

  I sit in the sideward all day, crying. Brenda says, ‘There’s nothing you could have done, Jen. She had a pulmonary embolism. She would have died anyway.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’ How could I tell her how officious I’d been, how I had used my authority to make the poor woman get up when she knew she wasn’t up to it, how I had listened to Stewart instead of her. ‘Dressed in a little brief authority’ – the words haunt me.

  I arrange to go to Cambridge on my next weekend off. I ask Judith if she could take some time off as I simply have to talk to her. She meets me at the station.

  ‘I am so pleased to see you,’ I say. We hug each other. ‘You look really well. The academic life seems to suit you.’ Judith is dressed in tartan slacks and a big sweater with a Cambridge University scarf wound round her neck.

  ‘Alan is away on a course so we have the weekend to ourselves and I have one or two small things to do but, otherwise, I’m all yours,’ Judith says as we walk out of the station to the bus stop. ‘Whatever is the matter? You sounded quite distraught on the phone. Let’s go and talk over a pub lunch before we go to the flat.’

  In the pub we order cider and pork pies. Once settled, I tell Judith about the incident with Mrs Bradley.

  ‘You always were oversensitive, Jen. You were only doing what a physician asked you to do.’

  ‘Yes, but it was the way I did it. I’m turning into a bitch. It seems to be an occupational hazard for sisters.’ I hastily drink some cider to stop myself from bursting into tears.

  ‘How long have you been a ward sister now?’ Judith asks with her mouth full.

  ‘Eighteen months.’

  ‘And how old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-seven.’

  Judith leans back to look at me. ‘Do you really want to spend your entire youth at LGI? I know you always wanted to be a ward sister and now you have. It’s time to move on and find out what a young person’s life is really like.’

  ‘I don’t want to swoon over the Beatles, if that’s what you mean.’

  Judith laughs. ‘No you’re too sensible. But there’s a life out here. You should he joining clubs, going to parties, taking classes, playing games. Be a 20-year-old before you’re 30 and over the hill.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking of going to Canada. They’re advertising for nurses like mad. The pay as a staff nurse is three times what I’m getting as a sister and they only work eight-hour shifts.’ I am beginning to feel more cheerful. ‘Trouble is, Sandy doesn’t want to leave Leeds and I don’t want to go on my own.’

  ‘Why not? You’d soon make friends. Come on Jen, start applying for a visa or whatever you have to do.’

  I return home with a sense of relief. Yes, it is time to leave. The housemen are not only looking younger but they seem more serious. I remember Howe saying that it was time to move on when they did.

  ‘Sandy,’ I say when she comes in. ‘I’ve decided to leave and go to Canada. To Vancouver with those wonderful mountains.’

  ‘When?’


  I thought Sandy would scoff at the idea but she looks interested. ‘As soon as I get my immigration stuff sorted out and have a job to go to.’

  ‘I’m coming too. I’ve been thinking about moving on ever since we saw those slides of Canada. I don’t know what my father will say but I can’t live my life around him.’

  We stare at one another in excitement. Over the next few weeks we gather information about visas, travel, Canada, Vancouver and choices of hospital. In record time we have landed immigrant status and can apply for a job. We write to Vancouver General Hospital requesting a position. A letter, by return mail, tells us they will be happy to see us at any time, the sooner the better.

  I write to Matron giving her my notice. She sends for me. I enter the inner sanctum, draw up a chair, and sit down.

  She says, ‘I have received your letter of resignation. You are certain about this, Sister?’

  ‘Definitely. I have a job, a visa and a boat ticket.’

  ‘I am very sorry to lose one of my best sisters, but I wish you every happiness.’

  Good grief, she gave me some praise. Isn’t it typical that one only hears that one has done a good job when it is time to leave?

  Time flies by as we pack our trunks and clean out the flat. The final day arrives. With mixed emotions I walk on to Ward 1 for the last time. After prayers the nurses present me with a case for carrying gramophone records. Buzz stays up to attend a coffee party for me in the sideward. BB calls by later in the day to give me a giant hug. There is so much warmth and friendliness, I almost change my mind, but after dinner I take my clean uniform to the sewing room, pull the thread out of my bonnet and deposit it and my dirty uniform into a bin for the last time.

  Instead of going straight home, I ride my scooter all around the smoke-grimed hospital, coming to a halt where I can sit and gaze at Ward 1. For a while I am overcome with nostalgia. I can hear the clatter in the main corridor; I can smell the fish for dinner; I can see the beds in my ward stretching down its length filled with women in varying degrees of discomfort, but all grateful to be waited on for once in their lives. My mind is in the sideward discussing patients with Stewart and his houseman. I smile as I recall the laughter I have shared with Joan and Brenda. I can almost hear Joan saying to me, ‘You daft bugger, what will you do next?’

  Although the work is exhausting, I only remember the fun we have: the jokes that sweep through the hospital like a bush fire; the antics of the housemen; the earthy Yorkshire humour of our patients, their stoicism, their generosity; the pantomimes with their amiable ribbing of consultants; the delight in making sick people feel better; the pride in one’s competence; the affection of Leeds’ people.

  I kick start my scooter and roar away. Look out Canada, here I come.

  Afterword

  ONE OF THE pleasures I enjoyed after the publication of the first edition was the letters I received. They came from New Zealand, Canada, France and the UK and were from nurses I had known, nurses who trained in hospitals other than LGI, physicians of that era and even one from a man who had been a patient in LGI in the fifties. It was heart-warming to know that the book stirred up so many happy memories – even from the patient.

  One ex-nurse told me, quite rightly, that I had omitted the Ritual of the Hot Water Bottle. Although patients routinely rebounded off the floors, burned holes in their sheets with cigarettes (and on one memorable occasion, nearly lit up in an oxygen tent), or went AWOL, the administration was intimidated by the fear that they might burn themselves with a hot water bottle. Consequently, the temperature of the water had to be measured before filling. I can’t remember what that temperature was but I do know the result would be classified as ‘tepid’. The bottle was filled two-thirds full and the empty part squeezed before the plug was inserted. Check the plug was tight; turn bottle upside-down and shake; dress it in a flannel cover; take to patient. The expression on their faces when presented with this ‘hot’ comfort can only be described as ‘resigned’.

  As the book began on my first day I didn’t deal with the admission interview with Matron, but one reader recollects hers vividly. Like me she was required to respond to, ‘Convince me you will not leave training after three months’. Matron was the sole judge of whether you would be admitted to her school or not. Although she submitted a list of suitable candidates to the Board of Governors for official approval it would have taken a brave, perhaps foolhardy, board member to challenge her selection.

  Some people wrote asking if such and such character was so and so. No, I really did try not to use real people; with one exception – Amy Squibbs. Squibby was far too colourful a character to hide under another guise. I named her Agatha Japp in the book but otherwise I have described her as I remember her. And she really did catch me with a rubber tube down my nose!

  A researcher from the BBC wrote saying that the book was an immense help in planning a programme where a few of today’s student nurses would be put in a fifties setup. Unfortunately, because I live in Canada, I was unable to participate, but I was able to give them contacts. The programme, Thoroughly Modern Matron, was aired in November 2005. Two Scottish nurses, Sandra McQuat and Pat Johnson, played the parts of Matron and Sister as they initiated six students, mostly from universities, into Preliminary Training School. Funnily enough, the six young women liked their uniforms; they said they made them feel professional and feminine. They had trouble with the discipline, imposed by Matron. Although Matron did not take part in the daily activities of PTS, for this programme she did. The students were lined up daily and inspected like military recruits. One student was told to remove her tongue bar and they were all warned, as we were, not to wear jewellery. In our day, it didn’t occur to us to stick metal into man-made orifices so that problem did not arise.

  When talking to the BBC researcher I urged her not to portray the matron as some sort of comic ogre. I don’t think Hattie Jacques did the nursing profession any good in her portrayal in Carry On Doctor. Neither did ‘Hot Lips’ in MASH. The matrons who ran the hospitals for so many decades were well-educated, dedicated and highly responsible. They deserve respect, not ridicule.

  My ‘set’ (students who began training at the same time), was unusual in that we were small to start with and the attrition rate was exceptional. As far as I know the remnant that finished has made no effort to get together again, unlike other sets that have reunions every few years. The set of September 1953, for example, nine months after mine, had their 50th reunion in Leeds. Fifty years! Where did they go? The funny thing is that we are just the same despite the obvious change in body mass – same smiles, same mannerisms, same voices and same personalities

  I sometimes wonder if my memories of my twenties are too golden, if I’ve forgotten the unpleasant parts and if I’ve developed the mind set that things were better in my young day. Many things have not changed: there is still a shortage of beds, for example. Remember when we had extra beds down the centre of those long wards? The poor patients had no privacy at all. And the work is still hard, both physically and emotionally. The young women and men who enter nursing today are more sophisticated than we were but, judging from my recent hospital experiences, are equally kind and caring. I salute them … the lamp burns on.

  Jennifer Craig, 2010

  Acknowledgements

  I am deeply grateful to my old buddies who went through this experience with me, and who so generously shared their memories. To:

  My long-standing friend, Isobel Foggitt, who came to Canada with me but who is not ‘Sandy.’

  Margaret Thompson (Tommy) and Margaret Smith, ex-Theatre Sisters who provided me with the stories about theatre.

  Betty MacArthur, Pat Jessop and Margaret Ball for reminiscing about night duty and the housemen with me.

  I was helped in the writing of this book by the encouragement of:

  Caroline Woodward, Vi Plotnikoff and Verna Relkoff, who are teachers of writing at the Kootenay School of the Arts.

  Dale Walker, wh
o heartened me by her chuckles as she read the first drafts.

  Wendy Grayburn, my aunt, who also trained at Leeds General Infirmary.

  My writing group: Jana Daniels, Bill Metcalfe, Vika Lamborne and Ann Alma, for their invaluable critiques.

  Thanks are also due to Christine Budd, Wendy Lyall and Dorothy Brown for providing pictures.

  Thank you everyone.

  About the Author

  Jennifer Craig trained at Leeds General Infirmary and rose to become Ward Sister. She emigrated to Canada in 1961, where she married and had two children. Later she studied for a Bachelor’s degree in nursing, followed by a Masters degree in education and finally a Ph.D. Ten years as an educational consultant in a medical school preceded semi-retirement when she became a student of homeopathy and obtained her diploma. She now lives in the mountains of British Columbia with a dog and a cat. She is also the author of Jabs, Jenner and Juggernauts, a look at vaccination from 1746 to the present day, which might be particularly useful to parents who are facing the decision of whether to vaccinate their children.