大象传媒

This story has been entered onto the site by Age Concern East Cheshire for Joan in her presence.

I had started work as a student nurse in spring 1944 at Manchester Royal Infirmary. This incident happened in the summer of that year and was my introduction to working on military wards. The names are made up but the events are my best memories of events.

We had just come on duty at 7 a.m. and were hanging up our cloaks, when Staff Nurse came and said,
"Sister wants to see everyone in her office, now." "Who's been up to something?" whispered the ward wit. "Now!" repeated Staff Nurse.
'Everyone', really meant everyone. Not only was Kate the ward maid there, so was her sister Bridjet, who was not on duty until the afternoon.

"I will be as brief as I can." Sister began. "All the military wards in the area are full. There is a train of wounded on its way to Manchester. Half the wards in this hospital are to become military. By tomorrow, we will be one of them. Normally, the cleaners then the decorators would move in but there isn't time for that. We will do the necessary. The poorly patients will be transferred to other wards. The night nurses have started getting them ready. The patients who are well enough will be going home. The police are out now seeing relatives. We will work in teams. There are lists of duties posted in the corridor. The teams will; get the patients up, packed and sitting by the fire or in the middle of the ward, strip and carbolise (wash down with carbolic solution) the beds, clean the lockers, make up the beds and push them to one side of the ward. Put a grey blanket at the end of each bed. The floors will be scrubbed and polished. Kate and Bridjet will be in charge of that and shew you what to do."

Bridjet went scarlet, Kate rose to her full height.

"Staff Nurse and I will see to the treatments. We will all do lunches." Looking towards Staff Nurse she asked, "Anything else?"

"Off duty." said Staff Nurse.
"Oh yes. Off duty for today is cancelled. You'll have extra time at lunch."
There was murmuring at the back of the group, then a stage-whisper, "Go on, tell her, tell her!"
"Well," said Sister, "tell."
Southern stepped forward. "It was my half day Sister. I was meeting my brother in town. He's on leave from the R.A.F. He won't know what鈥檚 happened." Without hesitation, Sister said, "That's alright nurse. Go and meet your brother." Turning to us she went on, "There's a lot to remember but you'll find it all set out clearly on the notice boards. If you're not sure, ASK."

As she finished speaking there was the rumble of bed-trolleys on the corridor outside the ward a sound that was to become familiar during that day. When we went to the dining room for our morning break, there were posted, rotas of those on-call for ambulance duty - to collect the wounded from the railway station.

By the end of the morning all the poorly patients had been transferred and most of the others taken home. The few who were left were made comfortable in the side wards.

At half past one Southern had gone to meet her brother. By three o'clock she was back. "Thomas says that what we are doing is important. We'll be able to see one another next time."

There was no 'next time'. Three months later he was shot down and killed.

The beds were finished, the patients had had their lunch, the cleaning and polishing began. Buckets, kneelers, scrubbing brushes, cloths and bars of blue and white mottled soap, were brought. The blue bits in the soap were gritty to the touch - it was probably washing soda. There was a large tin of bright orange polish which was dug out with a sort of wooden spatula.

Scrubbing a large floor is an art - a craft. It requires system and rhythm. I had never held a scrubbing brush in my life before and at first it would 'escape' at regular intervals. But under Bridjet's patient tuition, eventually, I mastered it. We worked side by side, backwards down the ward. I must confess to relief when that span of duty was finished.

After the scrubbing came the polishing. This was done with a 'dummy', a rectangular block about 18 inches long, on a swivelled handle. I do not know what it was made of but it was very heavy - too heavy to lift. To move it, we slid it across the floor. First, a thin layer of polish was spread on a piece of old blanket, then rubbed across the floor. Then the 'dummy' was mobilized.
The knack here was to get the thing moving under its own weight, with the loosely held handle turning in the hand - rather like
a tennis racket. On more than one occasion, someone held it too loosely and it went off on its own down the ward.
Sister Marshall had a reputation for being something of a 'dragon'. That day we saw someone very different. First, there was the incident with Southern and then later, when she seemed to have a sixth sense to know if someone was flagging. There she would be, helping to make a bed, down on her hands and knees with a scrubbing brush, retrieving the escapee 'dummy'. From time to time she would take one of us aside saying, "Go along to the kitchen and make yourself a drink."
At nine o'clock when the night staff came on duty, we all stood looking down the ward at two rows of white counterpaned beds, all with their castors turned in at an angle of 45掳 and at bedside lockers each with a jug of water. The floor, Bridjet and Kate declared, had never had "Never had a better polish鈥�.
When we came on duty the next morning all those beds were occupied - plus a row of camp beds down the centre of the ward.
A new phase of our education had begun.

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