Student Nurse 60's Style

It was compulsory for all student nurses to live at the nurses’ home for at least the first twelve months of training. In fact, they are normally residents for two years except by special arrangement. It seemed all the buildings around the hospital had been bought up for hospital employees. There were two nurses’ homes, on Church Street and Albert Street. They had previously been rows of terraced houses that had been knocked through to make a maze of assorted rooms. There was a doctors’ house and several of the houses from surrounding streets had been converted into flats for the married doctors.

We had been given a list of things we had to bring with us. These included black shoes and stockings – at least three pairs of stockings, and our shoes had to be the ‘good lace-up variety, with rubber, not plastic heels’.

There was a whole group of us moving in at the same time. We had all been to the linen room to collect clean linen for our beds, and then we had been told to wait in the sitting room for the home sister. When she arrived, we were instructed to follow her, like little ducklings following their mother, as she allocated a room to each of us. I was so excited. I had never been away from home before. Mind you, I only lived a mile down the road, and with my mother also working at the hospital, it was hardly likely that I would get homesick.

When my turn came to be shown my room, the door was pushed open and immediately bounced shut again. I narrowly missed getting a busted nose. I tried again by gently leaning against it, and then I peered around the door. I thought there had been a mistake; surely this must be the broom cupboard. The door wouldn’t open fully because the bed was behind it. It was the smallest bed I had ever seen. I remember thinking that it must have been made for a pigmy, and I felt certain I wouldn’t fit into it. There was also a wardrobe that I could just about squeeze past, a chest of drawers, and a sink in the corner. I could stand in the middle of the room and touch the walls on either side. No kidding, it was a good job I didn’t suffer from claustrophobia, and just to make matters worse, the tiny window overlooked the morgue. I soon learnt that I would be woken on a regular basis through the night by the sounds of a trolley being taken over the yard with a body on it. All the larger rooms were kept for the overseas nurses. We were instructed that visitors may be asked into the home, but students were to notify the home sister if they wished to invite anyone in, and communal sitting rooms to be vacated by eleven pm. I went to bed early on my first night,in my tiny bed, wondering what P.T.S. would be like. I didn't get much sleep because every time I turned over I fell onto the floor. It seemed like I had just nodded off, when I heard an almighty banging on the door next to mine. I nearly fell out of bed again. "Bloody 'ell" I thought. "What is going on?" Then I heard it repeated again and again, accompanied by a loud, "Wake up, Nurse. It's six thirty" "Blimey!" I thought. At the very least the place must be on fire, but no, it was the night sister waking up the early shift. The only problem was, of course, everyone else got woken at the same time.