Memory Lane

Sixty years ago in June, twelve years after the war, I arrived at a manor house in Surrey with 49 others to train as a Nightingale Nurse. I was then nineteen. The threemonth introductory course taught us anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, microbiology and a range of practical skills which included a lot of cleaning. It was intense. After six weeks, we were bussed up to St Thomas’ Hospital in London to our wards for a few hours each week. We were a group of innocents.

We struggled with wearing our uniform with its starched collar, apron and belt. The full-skirted dress accommodated everyone and looked smart. I recall the sensible black shoes and tights and having a sore neck from the collar. My ‘set’ were a wonderful crowd of middle-class ‘gels’ who were mostly privately educated. We could not start until we were nineteen as we needed ‘experience of the world’! For some this meant finishing school where they learned to get in and out of sports cars and tie a Hermès scarf. At the end of Preliminary Training School, one girl was asked to leave because she played the guitar, another became a nun and another left because she missed her boyfriend in Ireland.

Nurses’ homes in London were located in good places: Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Queen’s Square and Victoria, and presided over by a Home Sister. We were bussed to the hospital opposite the Houses of Parliament and worked split duties in a 48-hour-plus week. We had one day off a week and on night duty we worked for eight nights with four off. On an evening off we could get free tickets from Matron’s Office and enjoyed visits to theatres, the Albert Hall and the Festival Hall. I saw Arthur Rubenstein making six encores surrounded by red roses thrown from the audience, and other performances that would have been unaffordable on our salary of just over £9 a month.

We were quite secure with comfortable accommodation and transport but we yearned for more freedom as we entered the ‘swinging Sixties’.