The Midwife's Here!: The Enchanting True Story of One of Britain's Longest Serving Midwives (12 page)

‘Michael likes to play with the farm set and Tonka Trucks,’ Sister said affectionately. ‘Sometimes distraction is the best medicine for the little ones. I’m sure you’ll be very good at that.’

Finally, I was introduced to Gillian. She was four years old and was described by Sister Pattinson as a Mongol, which back then was the common term used to describe someone with Down’s Syndrome. Gillian had been born to an ‘elderly prima gravida’ – an older first-time mother – who was apparently not coping well with having a child so very late in life.

After my shift I looked up ‘elderly prima gravida’ in one of my books and discovered the term was given to a first-time mother over the age of thirty-five, which to my young mind did seem extremely old to be having your first baby. I’d never come across a mother who had had a child so late in life before, and I imaged poor Gillian’s mother to be tired and grey.

‘She was trying to help her daughter when the accident happened, and is devastated,’ Sister Pattinson explained. ‘Gillian was constipated so her mother decided to warm her potty in an effort to help her empty her bowels. Unfortunately, the metal pot was heated to such a high temperature that it burnt a nasty ring round Gillian’s bottom.’

Gillian flashed me a smile that belied the pain she must have been feeling beneath the intricate patchwork of dressings swathed around her. In her hand she had a battered old Rupert Bear annual, with Rupert playing in the snow on the front cover. She thrust it towards me expectantly, and bellowed ‘Hello Nurse!’ very loudly.

Sister Pattinson gave me a little nod of approval. ‘You can start here, Nurse Lawton,’ she smiled. ‘But be warned, that book is well loved and Gillian will have you reading it from cover to cover ten times over if you let her!’

I phoned my mum later that evening, as I had promised to let her know how I was settling in at Booth Hall. I told her I was enjoying the experience much more than I’d imagined I would.

‘Your father and I have always thought you would be very good with little ones, being such a caring girl,’ Mum told me. ‘I know he doesn’t say a lot, but your dad is very proud of you, you know. We both are. You’re a credit to us, Linda.’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said, feeling tears well in my eyes. ‘I feel very lucky. When you see what some of these poor children are going through, it breaks your heart and makes you realise that you don’t have any problems at all by comparison, not really.’

I soon became adept at changing dressings on the burns unit. It wasn’t such a hard job once I got used to it, and the children rewarded me in spades with their little smiles, or by unexpectedly placing their hand in mine.

I spent a great deal of time reading to both Karen and Gillian. Karen cried a lot, and it broke my heart that I couldn’t tend to her auburn hair, which remained matted and tangled for the entirety of my placement, but her scalp was so badly burned it was impossible to wash or even gently brush her hair.
Gillian was eventually allowed to go home after six weeks of treatment to her burnt bottom, and the day before she was due to be discharged I plucked up the courage to confide in Sister Pattinson that I was a little concerned about her on-going welfare.

I had met Gillian’s mother several times by now, and had seen that her age was not the issue at all. Even though she was probably about forty, she was hardly the wrinkled old woman I’d imagined an ‘elderly prima gravida’ might be. However, she was painfully shy to the point of being awkward, and seemed to have a great deal of trouble communicating with Gillian, let alone coping with her.

‘Don’t worry yourself, Linda,’ Sister Pattinson said, rubbing the tops of my arms in a motherly way. ‘They say every cloud has a silver lining, and in actual fact I believe it has been something of a blessing that Gillian has come to our attention. It seems neither of her parents have been coping very well with her and her mother in particular is a slow learner, but now they are going to receive help at home.’

‘Oh, that’s really good,’ I said, feeling pleased my instincts had been accurate.

Of the three of them, it was little Michael who really left his mark on me – but not in a way I’d anticipated. One evening he climbed out of his cot and walked towards me, crying, with his arms outstretched.

‘Whatever’s the matter, Michael?’ I asked, scooping him onto my hip in the dimly lit ward. He was dressed in nothing but a terry nappy, which was normal as the ward was kept so warm.

‘I’ve got doo-doo on my leg,’ he said shyly, at which point I smelled exactly what he was talking about. Looking down, I
saw that my white apron was now streaked with brown, and both Michael I and needed to go post-haste to the bathroom.

‘So-wry, Nurse,’ he said, hiding his face in my sleeve.

‘It doesn’t matter at all,’ I said, which was the truth. I had dealt with worse, and I had clean hands and a fresh apron on in no time. The burns unit had been an experience, and one I did not regret after all.

My next two placements were to be on a cardiac ward, and then in the Casualty department. It was the autumn of 1968 and I was a third year now, which meant I was allowed to wear three white stripes of bias binding on my sleeve. This provided a boost to my growing confidence as well as to my bank balance, as my pay rose automatically from £27 to £31 a month after my accommodation was paid for.

On my first day on the cardiac ward, I was told to report to Sister Hyde, who I’d heard from Linda and Anne was a ‘right character’.

‘Oh, there you are, Nurse Lawton,’ a deep voice bellowed from a side room as I entered the ward.

I followed the low boom curiously and to my astonishment I discovered Sister Hyde lying prostrate on the floor, chunky legs protruding like logs from beneath her skirt. Once again, I found myself standing and staring, mouth wide open, but this time it was in utter surprise rather than fascination.

‘Come in, come in. Don’t just stand there!’ Sister Hyde beckoned, before laying her head back down and starting to thrash her thick arms and jerk her large chest about.

I realised, to my amusement, that she was pretending to have a heart attack, the purpose of which was to instruct a
group of first- and second-year students in resuscitation techniques.

‘Put your hand on my chest,’ she was saying to a timid-looking second year. ‘Don’t be afraid to give it a right big push. Get stuck in, girl, go on!’

Addressing her wide-eyed audience, Sister Hyde shouted dramatically: ‘Unless you ladder your stockings, to my mind you haven’t made a good job of dealing with a cardiac arrest!’

I warmed instantly to Sister Hyde. She certainly was a real character, and over the next few weeks I loved working with her. I learned that she smoked incessantly in the kitchen off the side of the ward, asking us students to give her the nod if Matron was in the vicinity. Unlike the majority of the other sisters, who were spinsters, Sister Hyde had a husband and a busy life outside the hospital. We all liked her and she would often make us young nurses sandwiches, or ‘butties’ as she called them, so as to keep up our strength up on the ward.

‘You won’t have the strength to ladder your stockings, let alone jolt a heart into action, if you don’t put fuel in your belly,’ was one of her favourite mantras.

‘Get this butty inside you and then go on and get it sorted out,’ she said to me regularly, thrusting a brown bread sandwich made with Marmite or meat paste in my direction. Bed-making and taking temperatures often had to wait while I did as I was told and wolfed down my butty.

My confidence grew still further under Sister Hyde’s strong wing, and I found myself holding my head a little bit higher each day. I still would have much preferred to be looking after new mothers and their babies at St Mary’s, but compared to some of my experiences at the MRI, being on the cardiac ward was not bad at all.

The patients proved a boon to my self-esteem. The way the men flirted outrageously with the young nurses in films like
Carry on Nurse
was certainly not a true reflection of what went on in real life. Almost without exception, male patients of all ages viewed us nurses like angels and treated us with the utmost respect. They thanked us profusely for every perceived kindness, whether we were giving injections, gathering bedpans or simply handing out mugs of Ovaltine at bedtime.

I began to really enjoy night shifts. As a first and second year I’d found them a bit scary. The night sister was usually in her office during the shift and there were scarcely any qualified nurses on the ward. I’d often felt out of my depth and vulnerable with just the older students keeping an eye on me, and I’d worn myself out with worry as much as with the work. As a third year, however, I’d sit at the table under the green light and feel competent and capable as I tallied the fluid input and output charts, helped younger students with their queries, wrote up reports or prepared drugs for the patients.

One night, when the ward was in perfect order and all the patients were sleeping, I was congratulating myself on my efforts when a new arrival was wheeled in by an apologetic porter. The large, middle-aged man had survived a suspected heart attack, but he was reeking of whisky and nothing could be done until he’d sobered up. He was lifted into a bed and I hoped he would just sleep it off, but before long the patient began to stir.

‘Where’s the toilet, Nurse?’ he shouted as he threw off his bedclothes and began swaggering along the ward, waking half the other patients in the process.

‘I can get you a bottle if you like,’ I said, rushing over, but he brushed me aside and lurched towards the bathroom. I
followed him, concerned he might fall and injure himself, but to my surprise he swung round clumsily without warning, grabbed me by my collar and slammed me against a door.

‘Oi! Pack it in!’ a male voice ordered.

‘Watch it, mate!’ another warned.

‘Don’t lay a finger on her!’ a third pitched in.

Almost before I could register the pain shooting across my shoulderblades, all three of these male patients had leapt to my aid, and my pyjama-clad protectors bundled the protesting drunk back into bed while I slipped away to alert Sister. I was shaken up but thanks to my chivalrous patients I escaped with nothing more than a ruffled collar, a sore back and a little bruised pride. The next day one of the male patients handed me a box of Milk Tray.

‘My wife brought these in for you,’ he said. ‘She said I was to give them to “that lovely little nurse”.’

A few days afterwards I told Graham what had happened and he was naturally concerned.

‘It’s not right that you’re put in danger like that,’ he said. ‘Anything could have happened!’

‘Don’t worry, it’s very unusual,’ I replied, truthfully. ‘The patients are generally absolutely lovely. They treat us like little princesses, honestly. Some of the men even offer to help dish out the cups of tea at 4 p.m., because they can see how hard we work and they want to help us.’

This conversation reminded me of an incident soon after I started my second year and was doing a night shift on a female medical ward.

‘Remember Mrs Thurlow?’ I asked Graham, wanting to ease his concern. ‘Now
she’s
a typical patient, not this clumsy drunken man.’

I reminded Graham of the story, though I was sure he’d heard it before. It happened after I had distributed two sleeping pills to a middle-aged lady called Mrs Thurlow in bed seven, who had nipped to the toilet while I made my round.

Everyone slept soundly on the ward that night, and before I finished my shift the next morning I filled in my report and remarked that it had been a ‘peaceful night, without incident’. However, flicking through the Kardex file I spotted, to my horror, that alongside Mrs Thurlow’s name in bold red letters was a warning: ‘DO NOT GIVE SEDATION’.

‘My heart jumped into my throat and I ran to bed seven as quickly as my legs would carry me,’ I told Graham, laughing now at the memory. I had been mightily relieved to see Mrs Thurlow propped up comfortably with her eyes open, squinting at a crossword.

‘Mrs Thurlow!’ I began. ‘Did you … are you …’

‘Are you on about the sleeping pills?’ she chuckled.

‘Yes!’ I stuttered.

To my utter relief, Mrs Thurlow leaned towards me conspiratorially and whispered behind her hand, ‘Don’t worry, pet. I never took ’em. I threw ’em down the toilet. Knew I weren’t meant to.’ She gave me a wink and turned her gaze back to her crossword.

Those were the typical patients, I assured Graham when I’d finished reliving the story. Typical patients were kind and genuinely appreciative of the care they were receiving. I hoped I’d meet many more like Mrs Thurlow during my time in Casualty, which was where I was off to on my next placement.

I could see immediately that working in Casualty was going to be more like running a conveyor belt than working on a ward, and from the start I missed the rapport I had come to enjoy with the patients. Each hour brought a relentless blare of emergency sirens, breathless paramedics, staggering drunks and victims of all manner of accidents, some unlikely in the extreme.

‘My daft husband’s got his sleeve rings caught in ’is hair, Nurse,’ one agitated woman explained on my very first shift. ‘Don’t know what he was playing at; fooling around, no doubt.’

I looked at her husband curiously. Embedded in his thick mop of wavy hair was one of those metal garter rings used by men to tuck their shirt sleeves up their arms, to keep their cuffs from becoming soiled while working. I’ve no idea how he managed it; it was practically knitted to his head.

‘He works at the printing press in Oldham,’ she said quite desperately. ‘He’s meant to clock on in ’alf an hour.’

‘Let’s get a pair of scissors, then,’ I said.

I was too busy to question why they had taken the trouble to come into Casualty. They clearly wanted to salvage either the haircut or the sleeve ring or both, though neither looked particularly precious. I deduced that one of them had to go, and decided it was easier to sacrifice the hair, which looked in need of a cut anyhow. The wife looked close to tears as I cropped the thick silver ring out of her husband’s hair, leaving him with an unattractive bald patch above his left ear.

I handed her the thatched ring without further ado and packed the couple on their way, thankful I could now attend to patients in real need of medical attention.

‘Perhaps you should have gone to a barber shop instead,’ I wanted to shout after them, but I held my tongue and thought,
‘If only Miss Morgan or Sister Bridie were here, they’d have given them what for!’

The following week I’d just started my shift at 9 p.m. on a Saturday night when I heard the wail of an ambulance siren and the sound of screeching tyres outside. A small girl called Tabitha was stretchered in, followed by two hysterical women, who identified themselves as the girl’s mother and aunt.

‘Nurse Lawton will take care of you,’ I heard the male charge nurse, Dennis, tell them as he herded us together. ‘Follow her over there, into the side room.’

I had never come across a male nurse before. I could instantly see how a man like him, who clearly stood for no messing, could be extremely useful in Casualty, but on this occasion I found his manner unnecessarily rude.

As I gently ushered the wailing women into a side room and fetched them cups of tea, I felt an overwhelming urge to make them feel better.

‘There, there,’ I soothed. ‘Tabitha will be all right.’

The girl’s distraught mother wiped her eyes with the backs of her trembling hands and looked me straight in the eye. ‘I do ’ope you’re right, Nurse,’ she said. ‘I do ’ope so.’

As she spoke I sensed some tension falling away, but the poor woman’s ruddy face was still etched with worry.

Several hours later I heard the most dreadful news: Tabitha had bled to death. She was just five years old and had been hit by a car, and the injuries she sustained were too catastrophic for her to survive.

I never saw Tabitha’s mother again, at least not in person, but every night for weeks and weeks afterwards I saw her devastated face in my dreams. I saw the little glint of hope I gave that mother with my careless words. False hope. I had no
idea how bad Tabitha’s injuries were and I gave her mother false hope with my erroneous comfort. How wrong had I been? I vowed never, ever to make that mistake again.

One evening before bed I felt the need to ‘confess’ to someone what I’d done. I’d not told Graham about Tabitha, which was unusual, but after almost three years of comforting me though my training I felt I was putting a little too much on him. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t coping this far down the line.

It was 1969 now, and we were getting married later in the year. We’d set the date for 22 November, two months after I would hopefully have qualified as an SRN, and during the period when I would be completing my final three months’ work at the MRI.

I decided to have a chat to Linda about what had happened with Tabitha. She might help me cope with it. I tapped on her door and she opened it slowly, ashen-faced.

‘Whatever’s the matter?’ I asked. She threw her arms around my neck and began to cry.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Really, I’m so sorry to make such a fuss.’

I let Linda take her time. She told me, in a series of sobs, that her mum had lost her long battle with cancer and the family had decided to move back to Scotland. Linda’s long-term boyfriend had secured a job in Edinburgh and she was planning to complete her training in a Scottish hospital, after taking a period of compassionate leave.

I felt desperately sorry for Linda. She had helped nurse her mother for years, never once complaining about their circumstances. I found it hard enough coping with the deaths of patients on the wards, and I couldn’t begin to comprehend
what she was going through. Just the thought of losing someone so close made me shiver. It was devastating and I wished I could do something to help ease Linda’s pain.

At the same time I was upset about Linda leaving the MRI. I knew I would miss her tremendously. Out of all the student nurses, she had become my closest friend. She always had a tale to tell and a knack of lifting my spirits. Linda had also earned a reputation for sticking up for herself against some of the more tyrannical sisters, which I admired and respected. I was losing a good friend and ally, and I felt the loss acutely.

I also felt a strong pang of nostalgia. Linda’s departure would signal the end of an era, the end of our time together as student nurses. Although I had spent hours on the phone telling Graham how much I couldn’t wait to finish at the MRI and move out of the nurses’ home, I realised I would miss being a student. That reaction surprised me. I’d got used to my life, I suppose, and for the most part I was enjoying being a senior amongst the student nurses.

There was an element of fear in my response to Linda’s news, too. We were all moving on, one way or another. The future was uncertain, and through Linda’s tear-filled eyes I could see that life never stood still, and that at times it could be very tough indeed.