The Midwife's Here!: The Enchanting True Story of One of Britain's Longest Serving Midwives (8 page)

I thanked Lesley profusely for letting me go.

‘Don’t mention it,’ she said. ‘It just goes to show: I guess you can never presume you’ve seen it all in nursing. Sorry you had to see this, so soon after Mrs Pearlman.’

Miss Morgan retired at the end of my first year as a student nurse, and a new matron called Miss Bell arrived. She too had an ample bosom, which seemed to be a prerequisite for the job, but I was pleased to see that she also had a refreshingly sunny smile. Her dark chestnut hair was as glossy as fresh conkers, and I was quietly impressed by her each time I saw her patrolling the wards. I thought how glamorous she looked compared to me, even though I was still a teenager and she must have been a middle-aged woman.

‘Matron’s coming!’ someone would caution with unnerving regularity. With Miss Morgan I’d been inclined to hide my head in a locker or dart into the linen cupboard and wish her far away, but when Miss Bell appeared I always wanted to catch a glimpse of her, and I didn’t feel the need to hide. She was immaculately presented and exuded confidence and charm. Like Sister Barnes, she made me aspire to be like her. ‘You can do it,’ I told myself time and time again. I could be like them if I kept working hard, looking after myself and trying my best. I didn’t have ambitions to be a matron or even a sister, as those jobs seemed a million miles away from me, but I wanted to be the best nurse possible.

‘I’d like to ask your father for your hand in marriage,’ Graham announced one evening. We were sitting in an unglamorous café on Deansgate, warming our hands on mugs of hot chocolate.

I giggled, embarrassed. Graham had said many times ‘When we get married …’ and in my heart I had known for a long time that he was ‘the one’ and we would no doubt settle down together eventually. I hadn’t been expecting this formal proposal right now, though, not while I had two more years as a student ahead of me. Nevertheless, I was thrilled.

‘OK!’ I grinned, adding without hesitation: ‘I’d like that very much.’

A few weeks later Graham took me to a jewellery shop called Wilds in Ashton. We looked at engagement rings in the window, feeling terribly excited and grown up, before going round to my parents’ for our tea.

‘You go upstairs, out the way, after we’ve finished eating,’ Graham plotted nervously. ‘I’ll ask your dad when your mum takes the pots into the kitchen.’

Graham’s plan worked like a dream, and my father readily agreed to the marriage, as I was sure he would. Even though I was so young – still just nineteen years old – both my parents were delighted at the news. In those days it wasn’t unusual to get engaged at that age.

‘We’ll have an engagement party,’ Mum said when we all gathered in the lounge. ‘Ooh Linda, how exciting!’

It was agreed we’d get Christmas out of the way and hold the party early the next year. That would give Graham time to save up to buy a second-hand solitaire ring that had caught my eye at Wilds.

‘I’m so pleased for you,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll make some lovely mushroom vol-au-vents and salmon and cucumber finger rolls and trifle for the party and, oh, let me see now, what else? We could do Snowballs and Pomagne cider and …’

We all started to laugh. ‘Listen to me!’ Mum chuckled. ‘I want it to be an occasion to remember. I’m so proud of you, Linda love.’

Dad just sat in his chair smiling, and Graham was grinning from ear to ear. I wanted to keep on making them proud, each one of them.

From that day on, I often thought of their three delighted faces when I pulled on my nurse’s uniform and got on with my
training. I was doing the right thing as a dutiful daughter and committed wife-to-be. I wanted to make them all so very proud of me, always.

A few months into my second year, around February 1968, I was assigned to a medical ward for patients with kidney problems. I knew very little about kidney failure but I was excited when I was shown the special room that housed the dialysis equipment. To me, it looked like a scene from the film
The Time Machine
, based on the book by H.G. Wells. I remembered seeing posters around town advertising it, showing a weird and wonderful contraption that took you to another world.

Here I felt as if I’d stepped into a science-fiction scene myself, but there wasn’t just one strange, metal machine before me – the whole room was full of them. Patients would spend a whole day in the dialysis room, I was told, as the biggest of the grey machines whirled and clicked and pumped, removing waste from their blood because their own kidneys couldn’t do the job for them.

I met two very special people on the renal ward. The first was Ronald Buxton, who was thirty-five years old with two children called Bobby and Sandra. He proudly showed me pictures of his son and daughter, telling me they were aged five and seven and the ‘loveliest kids in the world’. Bobby supported Manchester United and fancied himself as the next Bobby
Charlton, while Sandra had won trophies for tap dancing and wanted to perform on
Top of the Pops
when she grew up. I met the children once and they were as adorable as I’d imagined, kissing their daddy and presenting him with home-made get well cards they had coloured in carefully.

Ronald’s wife, Chrissie, was as quiet as a mouse. She visited every day, topping up her husband’s supply of his favourite Fig Roll biscuits and sitting quietly and holding his hand. Ronald was waiting for a new kidney, and on each visit Chrissie would ask hopefully, ‘Is there any news, Ron?’

‘Not yet, love,’ he would say. ‘Not yet.’

My heart would ache for them. The same scene played out for six or seven weeks of my two-month placement.

The other patient I grew attached to was Heather Read. She was twenty-eight years old and had long golden hair, which she would always ask me to brush before her husband visited. ‘I want to look nice for him, Nurse,’ she would say. ‘Do I look pretty, Nurse, do I? I want to look my best for him.’

Her husband David lived in Wales and they had two very young children. He couldn’t visit every day, but when he did he always brought his wife a present. As a result, Heather had a beautiful collection of silky nightgowns and some wonderful make-up. She was delighted when he brought in some Max Factor Pancake foundation, which she used to disguise her yellow pallor, and she squealed excitedly when he turned up one day with a Mary Quant blue eyeshadow and jet black eyeliner, which she used to copy the looks of models like Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy.

The first to die was Ronald. I knew he was slipping away, but I wasn’t prepared for the truly tragic scene that greeted me one evening. Chrissie had been at his bedside when he
passed away, but she couldn’t accept he had gone. When I arrived for the night shift she was still shaking his lifeless body and imploring him: ‘Please don’t leave me, Ron! We need you here with us. Please, Ron, don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me!’

‘She’s been in with him for quite a while,’ Jennifer, a third-year student, told me sadly. ‘I’ve never heard her say so much in all the time she’s been coming in. We shall have to intervene shortly. I’ve talked to Sister.’

Coaxing Mrs Buxton away from her husband’s body was heartbreaking. When I escaped the ward for my meal break later, I rushed off alone to an empty side room so I could sob until my eyeballs ached.

‘Dear God, do you really exist?’ I asked silently, looking through a window and up at the starry night sky as I crossed the walkway and headed to the canteen. ‘If you do, please can you hold my hand?’

I imagined God took hold of my hand and helped me wipe away my tears, but it didn’t help. I still felt utterly devastated, and I was glad when I spotted Janice sitting alone at a table for two. Perhaps having a chat with her would cheer me up.

Janice had her head down and was swirling a blob of raspberry jam absent-mindedly into a bowl of steaming semolina.

‘How are you?’ I asked.

We both watched the pudding turn pink as Janice said miserably, ‘Fed up to the back teeth.’ She recited a catalogue of woes and told me she had decided to quit. ‘I handed in my notice to Miss Bell this morning and I am going in two weeks’ time. I can’t take it any more, but I have to work my notice.’

‘What will you do?’ I asked, feeling forlorn.

‘Don’t know yet,’ she replied. ‘Anything that doesn’t involve blood and guts and death will suit me fine.’

I didn’t bother telling her about Ronald. She didn’t look as if she could cope with any more depressing news. We were about eighteen months into our training by now – practically halfway through, in fact – and Janice would be leaving with nothing.

‘You must have a plan?’ I asked.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she said convincingly. ‘Getting out of here will be the best thing I ever did. This isn’t the life for me, not at all. I’ve known for a long while, so the brave thing now is to quit and do something I’m better suited to.’

I was very sorry to hear Janice’s news. Even though we had quite different personalities, our shared experiences had made us good friends. I would miss her, and for her sake I hoped she was making the right decision. Somehow I felt she was. The fun-loving, exuberant Janice I had first met hadn’t been evident for quite some time, and I realised nursing had been making her unhappy, so it was best to go.

Later that same week, I arrived for another night shift to find Heather’s bed occupied by an elderly male patient.

‘We lost her yesterday,’ Jennifer said, giving me a little hug. ‘Her husband left you this.’ She handed me a beautifully packaged gift, which I stared at. ‘He said to say thank you for everything you did, and he wants you to have this to remember Heather by.’

I wanted to open it in private but Jennifer was looking at me expectantly, so I untied the pink velvet ribbon and carefully opened the pretty tissue-paper parcel. Inside there was a small, wooden-handled hairbrush and a note that said: ‘Thank you for caring for my beautiful wife. I will always remember how pretty she looked in hospital.’

Unlike with Mrs Pearlman’s gold watch, I would not need to ask for permission to keep this gift. It had not been given to me by a patient and it was not a valuable item in monetary terms, but to me it was worth a great deal and I would treasure it.

I tucked it in my pocket and felt choked, as if the breath had been sucked out of my throat, but I didn’t cry. I wanted to sob and wail for Heather, but I couldn’t. I felt numb with shock and grief. My throat and eyes were as dry as bones. I was exhausted and wrung out. In that moment I decided I couldn’t go on either. I would quit, just like Janice, and in two weeks’ time I’d be out of there too.

Alone in my room, I composed a brief letter of resignation addressed to Miss Bell, requesting that I be released from my training and explaining briefly that I was struggling to cope and finding it too tough to continue.

The next day I made an appointment with Miss Bell so I could hand-deliver the letter, and if I was forced to explain myself further I intended to tell her I had decided to pursue a career as a nursery nurse instead. I didn’t know how I would go about this, but I was convinced that working with children who weren’t ill would be a perfect joy compared to nursing, and the thought of it filled me with relief.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell Graham what I planned because I knew he would try to talk me out of it, and I had made up my mind. Nor did I tell Nessa, Anne, Jo or Linda, as I knew it would make me feel a failure compared to them. I didn’t want a fuss; I just desperately wanted to go home and start again.

Mum would understand eventually, I reasoned. She’d thrown a wonderful engagement party for Graham and me just a few weeks earlier, to coincide with my twentieth
birthday in March 1968. As promised, she laid on an impressive spread which included potted salmon finger rolls, cheese and pineapple cubes on sticks, warm vol-au-vents topped with sliced cucumber and presented on doilies, fruit cocktail made with tinned peaches and glacé cherries, plus her signature sherry trifle, topped generously with grated chocolate.

‘Georgy Girl’ by The Seekers played on the record player in the corner as Graham and I cut our iced fruit cake, which had been lovingly baked by my father. Dad took a few photographs on his new Kodak Instamatic camera, and I still have one or two today. They show me posing happily beside Graham and the sets of crockery and glassware we received as engagement presents. I’m dressed in a long-sleeved black mini dress with little white spots, which has a Peter Pan collar and a row of tiny buttons down the front. When the assembled guests all clapped noisily to toast our happiness, I remember it made the needle on the record jump and Mum put on something by Manfred Mann instead.

After everybody had left and we were clearing up, Mum told me that what she wanted, more than anything, was for me to be happy. She was talking about my married life, of course, but as I grappled with my resignation letter I played with my mother’s words in my mind. She would be dreadfully disappointed, but I convinced myself she would ultimately support my decision to quit. She wouldn’t want me to be miserable in my work, and nor would my father. They would understand, once they had got over the inevitable shock, and it wouldn’t be long before I got myself on a new course, hopefully nursery nursing, and started afresh.

I was trembling when Miss Bell summoned me into her office. ‘How can I help you, Nurse Lawton?’ she beamed,
signalling for me to sit down in front of her desk as she eyed the letter in my hand with astute caution.

‘I have come to tender my resignation, Matron,’ I said meekly. ‘Here is my letter.’

Miss Bell took the letter from me, arched a silky eyebrow and asked, ‘May I know the reason?’

Her tone of voice showed no reaction to my dramatic news, and I felt my pulse pounding.

‘I don’t think nursing is the career for me,’ I said apologetically. My voice was wobbling and I was squeezing my hands together on my lap to stop them shaking.

‘I see. Please wait here. I just have to slip out.’

With that, Miss Bell swished past me rather majestically, clutching the letter to her bosom.

As the clip-clop of her heels grew fainter, my heartbeat drummed louder. I wanted to run in the opposite direction down the corridor but I sat still, obediently waiting for Miss Bell to get back.

I felt incredibly uncomfortable, not knowing what she might say or do on her return. There was a ticking clock sitting on her desk, and a black telephone. How long would she be? What if the telephone rang? My legs started to jangle. I clenched my toes inside my shoes and tried to anchor my heels firmly onto the floor. I was absolutely terrified, and I sat like that for a full twelve minutes before Miss Bell reappeared.

She was smiling, thank goodness.

‘You have struggled at times, Nurse Lawton, haven’t you?’ she said kindly.

I nodded.

‘I do understand. Lots of girls find it very difficult, particularly here at the MRI, where our standards are so exacting.’

I wanted to cry, but I didn’t.

Miss Bell was still holding my letter, which she now raised aloft. ‘However, I am not just going to accept this,’ she said, before folding it briskly in two and depositing it in her desk drawer. ‘I am going to send you to St Mary’s Maternity Hospital in the centre of town for three months. You will continue to live here. You will have breakfast here each morning and then a taxi will pick you up at 7.30 a.m. sharp and take you to St Mary’s. You will have your tea there and you will wear the same uniform, but you must not wear your apron in the taxi. Let’s give it a try, shall we?’

I nodded gratefully. I wanted to get out of Miss Bell’s office as quickly as possible, and I felt a wave of relief as I realised that although she had not accepted my resignation she had handed me a ticket out of the MRI.

‘Go and see Mr Tate now, please. He is expecting you.’

Miss Bell did not expand on why she thought maternity nursing might be the way forward for me, and I am sure she had no idea I had an interest in nursery nursing. To this day, I believe she simply followed her instincts – and how sharp they were!

She must have conferred with Mr Tate during the period when she left me alone in her room because he already knew about my new placement and made a point of wishing me luck. It was very kind of him to help facilitate this opportunity and I thanked him profusely.

Maternity meant babies. How lovely! That could be even better than working with small children, I thought optimistically. I pictured pretty babies gurgling and sleeping peacefully while I made up bottles and fetched their tired but radiant mothers a freshly brewed cup of tea. I had no experience of
babies whatsoever – had never even picked one up – but I was suddenly delighted at the prospect. I knew it had to be far better than looking after people who were ill.

My first taxi journey to St Mary’s, in April 1968, was quite a thrill. There were three other girls with me, none of whom I knew personally but all of whom seemed equally as excited as me to be going on secondment to St Mary’s. I’d only ever ridden in a taxi on a handful of occasions and I felt quite important, being transported along Oxford Road in a shiny black cab, wearing my thick green cloak over my uniform.

I had been told many times that MRI nurses had a reputation for being a ‘cut above the rest’ and I really felt it now. For the first time I fully understood why Sister Mary Francis had insisted that she only wanted her girls to go to the very best hospital, and I felt extremely proud to wear my uniform in public. I was glad I hadn’t quit. I was taking on a new challenge, and I hoped and prayed I would enjoy it a great deal. Surely I would be better suited to dealing with birth than illness?

In the morning rush hour it was about a twenty-minute taxi ride along Oxford Road, which became Oxford Street as you approached the heart of the city. I knew the drive well, as when I went into town shopping with the girls we would take the trolley bus along the same route. Sometimes the electric-powered bus would lose its connection with the cable above and the conductor would have to get off and use a long pole to reconnect it to the electric wire running overhead. The trolley bus stopped every few minutes to pick people up, or so it seemed, and no sooner had you breathed a sigh of relief at a throng of passengers disembarking than another crowd pushed on.