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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ will be that call when they tell you it’s all been a terrible mistake and they don’t want you after all – that none of this is yours. But thankfully the phone didn’t ring. Enjoy the moment, I told myself.

      ‘Now you have your Mini. Did they give you a log book?’ enquired Miss Drummond. I nodded. ‘Good, good. Don’t forget to keep your petrol receipts and mileage up to date or dear Miss Presnell will want to know why. Have you met our manager yet?’

      ‘No,’ I replied.

      ‘She’s not a bad sort. Miss Presnell doesn’t bother us much does she, Mrs King?’ called out Miss Drummond without pausing for a response. ‘And she doesn’t take too much nonsense from the top brass. Though to be honest she only comes out to the sticks on high days and holidays,’ she added with a laugh. I saw Mrs King smile and arch an eyebrow at our colleague’s account of our superior officer.

      ‘And at 70 new pence to the gallon it’s not a bad deal,’ continued Miss Drummond. ‘Where did you train?’

      ‘Hackney,’ I answered.

      ‘Ooh, I like a girl who’s trained at a proper hospital. I started out in the Wirral and then New York before I came to the Garden of England.’

      ‘My parents lived in Sevenoaks for a few years and I went to school near Sunridge for a while.’

      ‘You’re practically a local then. You’ll know your russet from your cox,’ she chortled.

      ‘We haven’t got anything too gruelling for your first day. Miss Drummond and I have hearing tests at nine o’clock and I’m sorry that we’ll be out for most of the day. We’ve got a list of your patch and a big map of the area ready, you can reconnoitre the district a bit before you hit the road,’ explained Mrs King, handing me over a folder.

      I eagerly opened the huge map and saw the wide expanse of countryside. ‘You’ll be doing Totley, the outskirts of Malling, The Meadows and the surrounding areas. At the moment that’s about 800 babies and children under five plus the elderly visits we undertake.’

      I looked up at her eyes wide. ‘Eight hundred,’ I repeated.

      ‘And counting,’ she smiled, ‘not forgetting visits to the elderly to keep an eye on their general health. You’re also the school nurse for St Agatha’s and the Meadows Infant and Junior Schools. There’s a weekly clinic in Totley but luckily for you there’s only a monthly clinic run with the GP in The Meadows and at the RAF.’

      ‘That’s very fortunate,’ I uttered. Eight hundred children, I thought. Eight hundred! But secretly I couldn’t wait to get started. I wanted to know each one of them right now.

      ‘So, you sit tight for today and answer the phone. You need only go out if there’s an emergency,’ added Miss Drummond. ‘You’ve got your first clinic for Totley tomorrow afternoon, Mums and Toddlers on Wednesday and RAF clinic on Thursday – best you gen up on those. We’ll let you loose on some clients in the middle of the week; there are a few referrals from Dr Drake, our Totley GP, to work through. His scrawls take a fair bit of deciphering, so do ask if you have any questions. All the client records for your patch are in these boxes if you need to look anything up,’ she told me, tapping the two wooden index boxes already on my desk.

      ‘Righto,’ I replied. My fingers itching to get to work on the doctor’s referrals and plan my week.

      ‘And if you get a spare few minutes at lunchtime maybe toddle down to St Agatha’s Primary to introduce yourself. Mr Hopkins the headmaster is very nice and Reverend Shepherd generally pops in to have lunch with the children on a Monday. It’s all rather jolly,’ Miss Drummond informed me as she gathered up her bag.

      ‘Enjoy your first day,’ added Mrs King. ‘We’ll try and pop in again in a few hours and see how you are doing. I’m sure Flo will be clucking around you anyhow.’

      I’d been advised to stay put and settle in slowly and yet there I was barely an hour later lost in the Kent countryside with my sparkling Mini not just covered in mud but stuck in it. Only 20 minutes earlier I had been carefully planning out my diary for the week and making well-meant plans when my telephone tingled into life.

      ‘Hello, Totley Clinic, health visitors,’ I answered.

      ‘Hello, Nurse?’ whispered a weary voice down the line. I could hear the cries of a fractious baby in the background.

      ‘Yes,’ I responded calmly.

      ‘Can you come out, Nurse? I’ve fed and fed him till I’ve not got a drop left. He won’t stop crying, he won’t go to sleep. I don’t know what to do.’

      ‘What’s your name please?’

      ‘Mandy Rudcliff.’

      ‘And what’s your baby’s name and their date of birth please, Mrs Rudcliff?’ I asked, my fingers already lifting the lids on the wooden boxes that contained client records – eager to get to work.

      ‘Craig Joseph Rudcliff. I had him on 25 August.’

      ‘Lovely, and what’s your address please?’

      ‘The Farmhouse, Treetops Farm.’

      I quickly leafed through the records until I found a blank card for Craig Joseph Rudcliff; his discharge slip from Nurse Higgins had been attached with a paperclip. His primary visit was due and he was on my patch. Why not kill two birds with one stone, I decided.

      ‘Would you like me to come out now, Mrs Rudcliff?’

      ‘Quick as you can please, Nurse. And it’s the farmhouse not the bungalow at Treetops,’ she said wearily and rang off. I decided I better get to her lickety-split.

      Obstructed by the quagmire I resolved there was nothing for it but to walk. I could reverse out to get back on the road to Totley but there was no way my Mini was going to make it through all that muck up the path to the farm, which I assumed was at the end of what looked like a never-ending road ascending into the clouds. I picked up my bag and swung open the door of the car and let both my feet go squelch right into the mire. Never mind the stupid map, I thought, the thing I needed right now was a good pair of wellies; from that day forth I kept a pair in the boot.

      After I’d spent 10 minutes traipsing through sludge finally a house came into view. The Rudcliffs resided in a large whitewashed four-storey, double-fronted Georgian farmhouse with a patch of oval-shaped lawn serving as a front garden. A fence surrounded the property creating a barrier between Treetops Farmhouse and the gargantuan tin sheds that dominated the landscape. As I trudged nearer to the house the smell coming from the pig sheds and the noise of grunting and squealing swine was overwhelming. I noticed in the distance a newly built bungalow with a neat little garden and a border of rose bushes. It stood on top of a mound like a little castle and looked completely out of place.

      I opened the gate to the farmyard and a huge hound came looming at me barking defensively. I quickly retreated and waited on the other side of the fence hoping his master would come and call him off but no one did despite all the growling and snarling from the Alsatian. I’d come this far, I wasn’t going to fall at the last hurdle. ‘Sit,’ I said firmly, staring the animal down. To my surprise the dog obeyed so I sidestepped him and gingerly made my way to the front door and rang the bell, hoping I wouldn’t be left on the doorstep too long in case my new canine friend changed his mind about me.

СКАЧАТЬ