The Probationer Nurses had been given a list of the lectures they had to attend in the next three months, a list of their day and night duties, a list of the papers they had to submit at the end of each three-month period, a list detailing all the wards and rooms at the hospital along with a plan of the building, and a list spelling out the timetable they were required to follow, set out as follows:
Rise Prompt at 6 a.m. No second call will be given.
Breakfast 6.30 a.m. in the Nurses’ Dining Room.
Wards 7.00 a.m.
Lunch 10.00 a.m. Half-an-hour allowed from wards.
Dinner 2.00 p.m. ” ” ”
Tea 4.30 p.m. Off duty until 6.30 p.m. Study time.
Wards 6.30 p.m.
Supper 8.30 p.m.
Prayers 9.30 p.m.
Bedrooms 10.00 p.m.
Lights out 10.30 p.m.
There was yet another list for night duty, where it was noticed by several of the girls that they missed a meal:
Rise 8.00 p.m.
Breakfast 8.30 p.m.
Wards 8.55 p.m.
Off-duty 8.15 a.m.
Dinner 9.00 a.m. followed by two hours study.
Lunch 11.30 a.m.
Bedrooms 12.30 p.m.
‘So we’re expected to work longer and eat less on night duty?’ Olive Tollett, Patience’s room-mate, a big Wearside lass with arms as beefy as any docker, stared at Patience in horror. They were sitting on the narrow iron beds the small room held at the beginning of their second week at the Infirmary, having just got ready for bed. ‘Why didn’t I notice that before?’
Patience smiled. She had been a little unsure if she and Olive would get on when she’d first known she was sharing with the down-to-earth steelworker’s daughter, but she needn’t have worried. Whether it was a case of opposites attract, she didn’t know, but the two of them had hit it off from the word go. ‘Probably because you haven’t had time to work it out?’
‘Ee, you’re right there, lass. Me feet haven’t known what me head’s doing and me backside has barely touched solid matter for more than ten minutes. They say they give us half-an-hour or so for meals, but by the time you’ve got to the dining room and sat down, ten minutes have gone, and then you’ve got to get back to the ward again most times. Still, the grub’s not bad, is it, and they’re not chary with the portions.’
Patience thought the food was verging on horrible but didn’t say so. She was realising more and more just how privileged her life to date had been. Olive came from a family of fifteen children, five of whom hadn’t survived past their first year. Their home was in the decaying slums of the East End in the heart of the community in Long Bank. Olive had invited her to go home with her on their first half-day off, and it had been a baptism of what true squalor entailed. Not that Olive’s parents’ two-up, two-down terrace had been dirty or smelly like some of the houses she had passed, their front doors open in view of the hot weather and the stink enough to knock you backwards. On the contrary, Olive’s home had been as clean and tidy as plenty of carbolic soap and elbow grease could make it, but the filth and excrement in the streets outside in which barefoot children, their backsides hanging out of their ragged clothes and their faces covered in running sores, were playing, had filled her with pity mixed with revulsion. They had passed countless gin shops and bars on the way to Long Bank, and Patience had to admit she was glad of Olive’s stoic bulk at the side of her as thin, rat-faced individuals observed the two girls with dead eyes.
Nevertheless, it was an introduction into the fact that poverty is not necessarily synonymous with squalor. Olive’s three younger sisters were dressed in white starched aprons and their hair was lice-free, and her brothers were polite and cheery. Olive’s mother had presented them with a cup of tea and a shive of fruit loaf, and had been genuinely pleased to see her daughter, and Patience had left the crowded little house feeling envious of her new friend.
‘Do you reckon we’ll be able to stick it, lass?’ Olive surveyed her with mild brown eyes. ‘Me da was all for me starting at the kipper curing-house just down from us. It was better money, and heaven knows they need every penny at home.’ Olive was the eldest child and although two of her brothers were now working alongside of their father at the steelworks, money was still tight. ‘But me mam pushed for me to try for this when I got the heave-ho from Newtons.’ For years Olive had been employed by one of the fishmongers in the East End, beginning when she was just a child of eight or nine after school and then continuing full-time once she had finished her limited education. According to Olive, Mr Newton and his wife had been kind to her, but when he had reached seventy he had sold up and the new fishmonger had two strapping daughters to help him in the shop so Olive’s services were no longer required. ‘Me mam says anyone can work with the kippers but I’ve got a bit more about me.’ This was said with doubt. Olive, in spite of her bulk and cheery manner, wasn’t the most confident of people.