She shouted across the table: “Now don’t go on about that. It was nothing and anyway I’ve got to die of something!”

A Rowan Tree In My Garden Day 50

Stella was kind to everyone. At regular intervals her neighbours and friends got invited to a strawberry tea or a unique lunch.

Also she did projects for the WVS such as life-saving demonstrations. The one I remember best was when she was teaching us what we had to do in four minutes if an atomic bomb was on its way, which included white washing all the windows.

After her husband died, she was left with a sumptuous ruby red Rolls-Royce and two chauffeurs of whom she made full use.

She might lend the Rolls, along with chauffeur, to a young couple on their wedding day or for some other special occasion. More frequently, she would take someone out to lunch or tea; sometimes comparative strangers.

These trips were always fun. Stella spoke to everyone. The last trip that I was on with her was when she was 92 years young. I was taken along with an extremely arthritic cousin who was very deaf and an octogenarian sister also deaf and who had various other ailments.

Zest for life

We were transported to the grand Kinfauns Castle Hotel, newly refurbished in a Chinese-Scottish décor. Stella’s sister, in spite of all her ailments, was also very ‘with it’, a great character with a delicious sense of humour.

It was a fun afternoon, although towards the end I was told by her sister that Stella had not long recovered from an operation for cancer.

Stella overheard her telling me this and shouted across the table to her: “Now don’t go on about that. It was nothing and anyway I’ve got to die of something!” A truly great lady. Stella died aged 93, having never lost her zest for life.

Not long after the Arts Ball came the Nurses’ Annual Dance. Again I asked John to be my partner and he agreed.

The Nurses’ Ball, if you could give it such a grand name, was held in a much less salubrious place than the Caird Hall.

The Empress Ballroom was not inspiring to look at and was down in the dock area of Dundee not far from the Admiralty Arch. Neither edifice exists any longer.

The Admiralty Arch was an impressive piece of architecture standing very much on its own. I personally failed to see the purpose of it until I was told it had been constructed on learning that Queen Victoria was arriving by sea to pay a visit to Dundee and the City Fathers wanted to make a good first impression.

There were dances held in the Empress Ballroom on a regular basis but it was a venue that ‘nice girls’ didn’t go to.

If a mother heard that her daughter had been seen at the Empress there would be a row. However, when the DRI hired the hall there could be no more respectable occasion than the nurses’ dance.

Matron herself attended with a senior sister or two to sit beside her on the balcony above the dance floor to watch the proceedings and make sure the nurses behaved themselves and didn’t bring dishonour to the nursing profession.

It was a temperance affair, of course, no booze allowed.

On the first year that I was there I did naively wonder how some nurses ended up rather tiddly after Matron and the Sisters left.

Wall of silence

I hadn’t realised that the boys brought in bottles of booze which they concealed in their pockets, behind radiators and under tables and which was poured into tall lemonade glasses as there were no others.

I did enjoy the dance. It was full of fun and no one seemed to be in the least intimidated at being watched over from the balcony.

John hadn’t brought any drink with him so we spent the night on lemonade. After the dance was over he dutifully walked me back to the hospital and we talked for a while in the shadow of the great stronghold walls of the DRI.

However, there was an equally great wall of silence from John which I couldn’t penetrate, due partly, I thought, to his having been jilted by someone he loved.

That November, after the dance, I contracted some virus or other and spent a few days in Sick Bay. I wasn’t long out when I went down with another virus and landed back there again but returned to work before I had time to properly recover.

It was frowned upon to go home and be ill. Nurses

Privacy

Also, we were told, we mustn’t cause distress to other patients by having glum faces.

When death was expected, the patient’s bed was wheeled to the space nearest the ward door and surrounded by dark green screens, both to give the patient privacy to allow family in, and to give the other patients peace of mind.

‘Bods’ as the newly-dead were rather disrespectfully called by the nurses, although no disrespect was intended, had to be ‘done up’ before being taken to the mortuary which involved the closing of the eyes, washing the body, and replacing false teeth etc before wrapping the body in a sheet.

Once, a nurse friend of mine told me that a patient’s teeth had got mixed up with those of the dead person and she had to go and rescue them from the mortuary before a huge row erupted.

It was impossible to be deeply distressed by every patient who died. We would not have been able to do our job properly if we had been.

However, there were times when nurses, doctors and ward maids alike were distressed by someone’s death.

I remember once a beautiful, fragile young woman with perfect features and a flawless skin being admitted as an emergency.