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Around 1942 when women were called into all types of war work three nurseries were opened in Grantham —

1) In St Catherine’s Rd, near what is now Age Concern and Cinema. This was burned down.
2) Wyndham Park — now the nursery school.
3) Dysart Rd — Original is now part of a joinery business.

Came under the Ministry of Health , the local health office on St Peter’s Hill with the sanitary officer Mr Samuel Nott and the MOH in charge.

Staff — Matron RSCN or 3RN qualified
Deputy Matron or Nursery college (Norland or Wellgarth ) qualified

Later an experienced and qualified nursery nurse with some nursing experience could be appointed.

Nursery teacher
Nursery assistant
4 nurses in training
Cook and Cleaner (if cook was away I did the cooking on top of other duties)

Hours — Open from 7am-7pm plus Saturday until 4.30pm.

Nurses worked in 2 shifts, 7am — 4.30pm and 11am — 7pm (or until the last child was collected). Sometimes we had to take them home.
All the staff were on duty from 11am — 4.30pm and had a half hour lunch. Coffee break in morning for early shift and tea break for afternoon shift. Children had all 3 meals.

Cost — One shilling per day.

All mothers had to be out at work.

Buildings — War time pre-fabricated structures, concrete floors and heated by large coke stoves which the early shift nurses had to light each morning. Electric fires on wall over baths and in office and staff room. There was a cloakroom for the childrens clothes, a kitchen, an area for toilets, washbasins and baths, a sluice room.

All the nursery washing was done there, nappies, overalls, cot sheets, nursery clothes and towels etc. No electric washers — sink, copper, wringer and ordinary electric iron. This was the job of the junior nurse.

Large army blankets were used as rugs on the floor under play pens and for story times. The only curtains were black out material, and any picture on it’s peg, bed and other nursery property so that it could be identified quickly. These were made by the nurses.

There were 2 rooms.
Toddler room — larger one for children of 2-5 years
Baby room — smaller for children of 1 month — 2 years

Toddler Room — Nursery size table sand chairs, stacking beds, wooden ends and sides covered with Hessian.
Toys — wendy house (primitive sort) tea sets, dolls and beds. Shop created by us. Dressing up box. Push n pull toys. Sand and water play, modelling.
Educational toys — jig saws, manipulative toys, problem solving, books. Paul and Marjorie Abbott and Kiddiecraft toys were just coming in. We thought they were wonderful.

Baby Room- Each child had it’s own cot and bedding. Nursery size chairs and table for tweenies. Baby bath and larger one, nursing chairs, play pens, toys.

Many toys were made by us — dolls from old scraps and socks and puppets. Jigsaws from card and pictures pasted on. Off cuts from a wood yard, swan up, sanded and painted by us for bricks salvaged bits from home for sand and water play, dressing up, wendy house and shop.

Each room had it’s own time table according to the ages of the children.

Baby Room — Each child under one, was bathed every day and shampoo. Tweenies bathed at least twice a week and shampoo. Babies feeds and baby care put to sleep in cot or pram according to the weather. Tweenies had to be played with, taught to feed themselves and to walk, talk and generally cared for. Rest after lunch each day.

Toddler Room — was more structured timetable to include educational play, singing games and finger play (language development), imaginative play in shop on wendy house, painting, modelling, sand and water play. Care had to be taken to see that each child got a chance to choose during free lay time. Often difficult when 2 and 3 year olds disrupted the older ones playing war, spitfires etc.

Rest time was after lunch when the beds were brought out and during that time the staff had lunch in shifts or did nursery mending, made nursery clothes from our allowance of cotton material and knitting work overalls, dresses, knickers (knitted)!

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