大象传媒

My sister and I came off late duty at Dudley Road Hospital - a huge place with 3 miles of underground passages. There had been a great many admissions that night, all with dreadful burns as a paint factory had been hit. We were tired and hungry as we knocked on the door at home to be greeted by mother with a hot dinner in each hand. Straight down to the big cellar, which had been whitewashed and now held camp beds, a table - and I always remember the heating system; large clay flower pots with a candle in each which when lit had another inverted flower pot placed on top. It was quite surprising how hot they got. The cellar had a grating so we couldn't have lights; our air-raid warded would call down to us to check all was well, and as he was our local butcher, on rare occasions he would say in a hoarse whisper "I'm making sausages tomorrow, Mrs Teasdale - would you like some?"

From Dudley Road we were transferred to a Military Hospital consisting of rows of Nissen huts in the country near Bromsgrove (Warwickshire). Nurses being in short supply, many retired ones were called back to serve as staff nurses. I remember being for a while on a ward full of A.T.S. girls with such a staff nurse - she must have been getting on for 70. When she and I did our 6 p.m. round with medicines etc, it was always a cause of much merriment when she could come to a bed in which the occupant would be fast asleep. Grasping her firmly by a foot she would be shaken awake by Nurse Hayward saying "Wake up dear - nice girls don't lie like that鈥�; I never did work that one out. I don't know what today's nurses would make of having 70 patients to a ward and only one nurse on night duty with a "runner" between two wards.

We were paid 拢4 a month with keep which wouldn't please them these days. On the men's wards one soon learned how to cut bread - I didn't believe it the first time I got "teas" - taking round the trolley and, bed after bed it was "ten slices please nurse." Multiply that by 70 and you'll see what I mean.

We always put on a "show" for the patients at Christmas. Yours truly was roped in as "Principal Boy" - Prince Scopolomine. My Princess, dressed in a crinoline of white crepe paper frills, was Princess Penicillin. They were the two latest drugs in use. I think that was the forerunner of my "music hall" career with St.Mary's Singers - and all good fun it was too.

On one ward opposite to the one I was on at the time there were several Italian P.O.W.s, one of which had a lovely tenor voice which he used to great effect with his rendering of "O Sole Mio". Of course I had to retaliate - so he heard "Danny Boy" for the first time. We met eventually and he asked for the words and so we did a swop. I know this is all light frothy stuff - I could certainly tell much more dramatic happenings but we did have lighter moments and all in all my short nursing career was one of the most satisfying and happiest times of my life.

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