Nursing 1939 -1945 Chapter 1

I started training at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital in March 1940. The six months since war had been declared had been a strange, uneasy time, the phony war. Having expected to be heavily attacked by German bombers within hours, we had had a long period of quiet. The Army was in France, the Navy was protecting the seaways and the RAF was flying sorties over Germany dropping leaflets urging the population to abandon Hitler. Thousands of sand bags had been put round all public buildings, sticky tape was criss-crossed over windows, blackout curtains were made and air raid shelters built. Gas masks were issued to civilians and had to be carried everywhere. The cardboard boxes in which they were distributed were not made to stand up to constant handling and enterprising manufacturers soon began turning out covers as fashion accessories. Food rationing was introduced almost immediately and petrol was rationed, but clothes rationing did not start until later.

I had gone to the hospital in Lowestoft to begin with — my home on the Suffolk coast — to the Norfolk and Norwich to do a training course and couldn’t start for a few weeks, as there was a waiting list. I had an interview wit the matron, Miss Stolworthy, and was too overawed to say anything but my mother, who was with me, was quite impressed by her, a dignified figure in grey poplin with pin tucks and pearl buttons and a starch lace cap. She didn’t indulge in platitudes about nursing being a wonderful career, dedicated, or a service to humanity, but pointed out that I should be fed and housed and given a training that would be a lifelong asset.

The hospital had been founded in the 1750’s. It was a red brick building on a busy road, part of the life of the city, near shops and houses. It was well supported by the local people, as most hospitals had to be before the NHS started in 1948. Fundraising was important and one annual event for collecting donations across the country was Queen Alexandra Rose Day, when real roses or small pink artificial ones (like remembrance day poppies) were sold. Many paid insurance contributions of a few pence per week into work schemes to cover the cost of hospital treatment for themselves and their families, and in Norwich there was a big garden party each year when everybody gave generously. It was always opened by a celebrity to attract crowds, and one year it was Ralph Lynn, the actor, well known in the 30’s in light comedy with Tom walls and Robertson Hare. The need for fundraising fell away as the war continued and the Government was providing money for running costs.

Before we were let loose on the wards, we had three months in the Preliminary Training School (PTS). This was in a section some distance from the main building and near one of the Nurses’ Homes; everybody “lived in” then, and a lot of accommodation was needed. There was no married staff, so the homes were nicknamed “The Virgins’ Retreats”. Each intake of trainees was called a set; there were 14 in my set with a Sister Tutor in charge of us. We each had our own room and there was a classroom, dining room and common room. By way of introduction to hospital life, we were taken on a tour to see how things were kept going behind the scenes, the sterilizers, the dispensary, the laundry-which was like a factory — and the housekeeping stores with everything from vast quantities of food to cleaning materials, including long bars of Sunlight-type soap, hardening off on metal racks. Outside the hospital we went to the sewage works and visited the Milk Marketing Board to see milk being pasteurized and bottled — a big step forward in the fight against TB, which was still an ever- present menace for people of all ages and across all social classes.

I enjoyed my time in PTS, as well as learning quite a serious amount of anatomy and physiology; we were busy with practical things. We did invalid cookery, which included the making of beef tea, Melba toast, Albumen water with whites of eggs, junket, arrowroot, Bengers food and various items for diabetics and kidney patients. Reminiscent of Mrs. Beeton, we learned to lay trays for dainty meals. We were taught first aid; the emphasis seemed to be on stopping bleeding and applying splints for fractures, no mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as nowadays, but the old system as demonstrated in the St John’s manuals. We spent a lot of time doing complicated bandages on each other, which had our victims looking like the invisible man by the time we had finished. We made beds with mitered corners and draw-sheets and gave “Dora” the life sized doll, bedpans, blanket baths, enemas, injections and treated pressure points. We were shown how to apply fomentations with boracic lint and boiling water, how to make various poultices and how to apply Kaolin and even mustard plasters. Leeches and cupping glasses were demonstrated. We were responsible for all the cleaning in our block and set off each morning in pairs with cleaning boxes, to expend our energies on going over already spotless surfaces and fittings! We damp dusted and dry dusted, scoured baths and lavatories, swept walls and ceilings with long brushes and polished brass fittings and taps.

One afternoon the PTS, chaperoned by Sister, was invited to Sprowston Hall, a country house on the outskirts of town. It was a lovely spring day and we picked big bunches of daffodils to take back to the hospital for the wards and the chapel. The owner of the Hall had provided a splendid tea, to which we did full justice. Altogether, a very happy few hours, but everything was about to change.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.