Look who’s moved in to the nurses’ home

DURING the mid-Sixties I was a nurse on night duty at Clayponds Hospital in South ealing, london. I was only 19 and in charge of the skin ward. All the wards were in separate buildings in beautiful gardens. When we were not actually working we sat by the open gas oven for warmth.

each time we did a ward round it meant leaving our warm bolthole. But one night, I never got further than the kitchen door, as there, on sentry duty, was the largest cockroach you ever saw.

As I had to check my patients, this sentry had to go. I’m no hero, so I phoned the night porter. He hotfooted it to my aid and, in a fit of laughter, captured my sentry and put it in a matchbox. I’ll never forget its long feelers moving about outside its prison.

My lovely porter promised me he would release it far from the skin ward. I actually think he let it loose in the nurses’ home. The following week, my friend and I went to Hammersmith Palais to dance the night away. We’d ordered a late supper at the nurses’ home, which was always kept hot in the kitchen.

To reach the kitchen we had to cross the dining room in the dark before getting to the light switches by the kitchen door.

But in the dining room there came a loud crunching noise from under our feet. When we put the lights on, hundreds of cockroaches scuttled to their hiding places under the skirting boards in the beautiful, panelled room.

left behind were a good few bodies that had been trodden to death. We didn’t attempt to sweep them up but left them for the maid in the morning! Carole Ratcliffe (née Hester),

Manningtree, Essex.