Our Country Nurse: Can East End Nurse Sarah find a new life caring for babies in the country?. Sarah Beeson

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СКАЧАТЬ of Infants Ward, would say to my loose, long dark hair, free from pins and tightly wound buns. Funny how health visitors were in mufti but midwives and district nurses still had their uniforms and were recognisable in the community. When you thought about it, a health visitor on your doorstep could be anyone; the Avon lady or a well-meaning caller from the Women’s Institute perhaps – but maybe that was the point?

      At the front door of the clinic I rooted around in my brown leather shoulder bag for the key Flo had given me and was alarmed to discover the door was already open. I remembered in Hackney my mentor Miss Knox telling me how often the clinic there was broken into by gangs and addicts searching for drugs – but surely this wasn’t the case in Totley? I crept down the chequered tiled entrance hall cursing the resounding click of my heels. Filled with uncertainty I put my hand on the handle of the first door. ‘Consultation Room’ was engraved on a brass sign but this door was locked. Past this was the large empty room that was used for the clinic. Grey plastic chairs were stacked against the wall behind a low table adorned with neatly piled copies of Woman’s Own and Horse & Hound. A small wooden desk was pushed up against the wall and above it a poster advertising tins of baby milk. Beside it stood a couple of comfortable chairs, a set of scales, and a stack of plastic bowls and tissues on the changing tables. I pushed open another door but it was only stairs leading down to the dark cellar that served as the clinic’s storeroom and I didn’t fancy investigating any further down there. When I poked my head round the doors to the loo and the small kitchen a strong smell of bleach wafted at me from each. I noted that though these facilities were a bit tired and dated, like my little flat, Flo certainly kept them gleaming and in good order.

      Finally, I came to the ‘Health Visitors’ Office’ at the bottom of the corridor. The door was ajar. I peeped round the edge of the door and observed there was a desk in each of the four corners of the room and at the tidiest desk nearest the picture window sat a woman writing with a slim silver pen. A perfect line of glass vases of different shapes and sizes in pink, blue, green and yellow glass were beautifully arranged on the window sill. The coloured glass reflected the morning sunshine in a brilliant rainbow across the room. A large emerald and sapphire coloured speckled vase filled with white roses and blue and lilac freesias sat on her desk next to a collection of decorative silver photo frames. The elegant woman was wearing tortoise-shell spectacles on a gold chain round her neck, a perfectly pressed moss-green linen skirt and jacket and a violet blouse. Several rows of pea-green glass beads hung loosely round her neck as well as a gold oval-shaped locket. She was not young and must have been in her mid-forties; to me, she was the epitome of sophistication and style and not what I had expected of a country health visitor in the least. I hovered in the doorway for a few seconds watching her before she realised I was there. I couldn’t help but feel a little tatty by comparison and missed the reassurance of my nurse’s uniform. I nervously rocked onto the outer edges of my feet, scuffing my new shoes until a few moments later she sensed my presence. In one swift movement she immediately got to her feet while simultaneously pushing her reading glasses on top of her shiny black cropped hair to get a better look at me.

      ‘Ah, Miss Hill, we’re so glad you’ve come to join us,’ she said warmly as she quickly walked over and ushered me in. ‘Let me show you your desk. I’m Hermione Drummond.’

      ‘It’s lovely to meet you, errr’ – was she a Miss or a Mrs? Oh, help, I couldn’t very well call her ‘Nurse’.

      She immediately saw my dilemma, ‘Miss Drummond. Unmarried, thank heavens,’ she told me with a chuckle.

      The door was nudged open with a bump and another very lofty woman stood in the doorway dressed in a burgundy polo-necked jumper and a pale-grey and brown zig-zag-patterned long skirt and cardigan. Her wavy grey hair was scooped up in large combs at the sides of her head. Unlike Miss Drummond who had a slightly bohemian air, this health visitor wore no jewellery except a gold wedding band and a three-stoned diamond ring, but she was just as smart and graceful.

      I wondered if excellent deportment had been a prerequisite to health-visitor training in days gone by. Both my new colleagues were tall and filled with quiet confidence – at a little over five foot I couldn’t help but feel that I didn’t quite measure up in more ways than one. Stand up straight, Sarah, I told myself, stretching myself out a little more and trying to look at ease in my new surroundings. In Hackney I could be nose to chest with an outright East End gangster and not turn a hair and yet here I was inwardly quivering like a school girl. Get a grip, I told myself, as I forced my nerves down and returned their friendly smiles with a big grin of appreciation at this amiable welcome.

      ‘Ah, Mrs King. You’ll see our newest addition, Miss Hill, is with us bright and early,’ Miss Drummond informed her.

      Mrs King placed the wooden tray she’d been carrying onto her desk. I noted the hand-embroidered tray cloth with delicate lace edges, all laid out with a white china tea service patterned with bright green hens and foliage. Standards were clearly very high at Totley Clinic; no upturned tea chest and illicit stash of shop-bought biscuits for them.

      ‘I had a feeling we’d see you sooner rather than later, Miss Hill,’ proclaimed Mrs King with a smile. ‘Hence the extra cup and saucer this morning,’ she explained as she poured out the tea. There was also a stack of delicious-looking shortbread on the tray, which made my depleted appetite suddenly reappear.

      ‘Shortbread?’ she enquired. ‘I made it yesterday evening while dinner was in the oven,’ she told me, offering me the plate.

      ‘Really! I had a Vesta curry on a tray in front of the telly and watched Upstairs, Downstairs,’ I replied, astonished, and helping myself to a piece. Sarah, why did you say that, I scolded myself, shoving the shortbread into my mouth to stopper it. Homemade shortbread – my, it was so good.

      ‘Oh yes, that James Bellamy is quite a dish, isn’t he?’ said Miss Drummond with a smile. ‘Etty went to bed early and I had the place to myself. Just me, Upstairs, Downstairs and a large gin and tonic – one of life’s lovely moments.’

      ‘Yes, it was a good one,’ agreed Mrs King. ‘Even the boys watched it with Jack and me – but I don’t think they’d admit it to their school friends. Then they both disappeared and camped out in the summer house all night again. I could hear Led Zeppelin drifting across the lawn until well after midnight; good job we don’t have any neighbours at our place but I don’t know what the hens think of it. Jack had to threaten to chuck a bucket of water over the pair of them to get them out of their sleeping bags and on time for the school bus this morning,’ she said with a laugh.

      ‘You’ve got two boys?’ I asked.

      ‘And a girl, Harriet, but she’s at Glasgow now doing History,’ answered Mrs King. ‘But David and John are 15 and 17 and can let themselves in after school now, which is fine as long as the cupboards are well stocked. Teenage boys never stop eating.’

      Three children, a husband and livestock to take care of and she works and finds a spare minute to make homemade delicacies – was she superhuman?

      ‘Sit yourself down, Miss Hill,’ instructed Miss Drummond, showing me my very own desk in the corner nearest the door.

      I’d never had my own desk before and here I was at a little after eight o’clock in the morning on my very first day as a health visitor sitting in a rather swish swivel chair in front of my desk drinking tea and eating homemade shortbread. It was all I could do not to swirl around and around in excitement. My eyes devoured my new office space – I’d been provided with a blotter and a wicker filing tray. Brand new pens and notepads were all laid out for me, on top of which was a set of keys for my drawers. I reached into my bag and pulled out the green leather mug and letter opener I’d commandeered from my dad’s desk and popped them in pride of place. I suddenly СКАЧАТЬ