Our Country Nurse: Can East End Nurse Sarah find a new life caring for babies in the country?

‘Though, I think they would struggle to find 15 minutes of uninterrupted time to meditate twice a day.’

‘You may be right,’ he chuckled.

I returned to the purpose of my visit. ‘Doctor, you’ve sent me a request to call on an elderly lady, a Mrs Wimble who lives at Peasblossom.’

‘I have, yes.’

‘Is there a particular ailment that you want me to address during the visit?’

‘I haven’t the foggiest, Nurse Hill.’

‘I’m sorry. Why have you requested a home visit? I don’t mind but I wouldn’t want to step on the district nurse’s toes.’

‘Neither Nurse Bates nor I can get so much as a toe in the door. Mrs Wimble refuses to attend the surgery and we’ve both failed to make it over the parapet at her camp. I’ve brought in the reserves.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you, Nurse Hill. If you aren’t able to make the old battle-axe see sense then I’m afraid I will have to refer her to the big guns.’

‘You mean the Welfare Department?’

‘Indeed. And judging by the outward appearance of that tumbledown cottage of hers I think it unlikely they would allow Mrs Wimble to remain in her own home.’

‘And I’m guessing Mrs Wimble would hate that?’

‘Exactly so. I can’t see her keeping on in a sanitised nursing home for even a month. The mind often takes root, and Mrs Wimble is definitely an ancient oak.’

‘I’ll call on her this afternoon, Doctor.’

‘Good luck. You’re our last hope.’

I smiled and slipped out.

That afternoon I ventured in my green Mini up and down the rolling hills of Totley en route to Mrs Wimble’s on the very outskirts of the village. I switched on the radio, heard a single line of ‘In the Summer Time’ and twiddled the dial pretty sharpish to change stations and discovered my old favourite tune ‘Yellow River’. I sang along to drown out thoughts of Hackney and my ex-boyfriend and the memories of previous summers that Mungo Jerry had inadvertently conjured up.

Soon the neat rows of terraced stone houses gave way to large detached and gated abodes, and then to copses and weather-beaten boarded cottages that stood on the edges of little hop gardens or orchards. Every smallholding and hedgerow seemed full of people beginning to reap the fruits of their labour: apples, pears, plums and of course beer. I almost wished I could take the afternoon off and be out in the September sunshine with them until my bucolic reveries were interrupted by a speeding van from Totley Brewery forcing me to swerve into a ditch. I recognised the driver in his brown overalls and rolled-up sleeves sitting high up in the van, oblivious to the oncoming traffic. The last time I’d seen him he’d been grinning like the Cheshire Cat, slightly the worse for drink in a grey beer-stained suit holding his newborn baby girl. I’d been worried he’d drop his bundle of joy but he thankfully proved me wrong. It was Alan Bunyard, and I’d be doing the primary visit for his wife Susan next week. Before I had a chance to curse him he was already out of sight in my rear-view mirror. Ah well, no harm done, I told myself as I shakily restarted the engine and continued on my journey.

The close encounter left me feeling tense and it was no surprise that I drove straight past the narrow almost indistinguishable lane that led to Mrs Wimble’s cottage and had to reverse back up the road. Squinting in the late afternoon sun at the faded wooden sign hanging on a rusty chain across the driveway I made out the name of the smallholding: Peasblossom. Well, that’s the one! Hermione had said the house was in a corner of Fairy Woods over the hills. I jumped out and unclipped the stiff latch attached to a decaying wooden post which was thick with late-blooming dill and mugwort in a plush carpet at its base. Once through I couldn’t be bothered to get out of the car again and decided to leave the entrance open for the time being and put the chain back on when I left, uncertain of how much of a deterrent this was. Later, I came to wonder if it had been Mrs Wimble who had marked her property as out of bounds or some other person.

As I trundled up the narrow driveway, acres of tall grass tangled with weeds and wildflowers towered on each side, gently brushing the roof of my Mini as we slowly passed by. Ancient chestnut, hazel and willow trees lined the road and behind them was a dense wood of beeches and oaks casting huge shadows on the sunlit lane. I turned off my radio and wound the window down. The woods seemed alive; the buzzing, fluttering and shuffling of creatures created a mellow hum that remained steady under the high-pitched rustle of the wind through the leaves. Those high branches were home to calling chiffchaffs and nightingales, a fuzzy mix of yellows and browns to the naked eye but their song was delightfully distinct. I thought momentarily of a childhood summer holiday and my dad reading me passages of H.E. Bates on the beach in Sandgate while my siblings clambered over rocks with their buckets, nets and raw knees, and felt warmed by this distant memory of ice creams, shrimping and most of all reading his books. In my little flat in Totley a well-loved copy of The Darling Buds of May waited on my bedside table and a pang for a family of my own went through me for a moment. I pushed it down; it wasn’t on my path just yet.

The lane stopped short of Mrs Wimble’s house, if you could call it a house. One side seemed to have collapsed completely and heaps of rotting boards lay in piles in the farmyard. Creeping plants obscured the rooms from outside view at every sooty window. A black cat ran straight in front of my car, forcing me to screech to a halt. She gave me a disdainful look as she ran across my path, a live mouse clenched in her jaws and a litter of mewing mahogany and ebony kittens running behind her. I looked at the muddy farmyard busy with ducks, geese and chickens and retrieved my wellies from the boot of the car.

As I opened the gate and ventured down the garden path a flapping of wings was visible in the corner of my eye before my ears were assaulted with a terrifying honk as a snow-white gander charged me. No use telling this one to sit, I thought, as I ran to the door and attempted to bat him back with my large diary and called out for dear life for Mrs Wimble to open the door, but there was no reply. Eager to be away from this awful creature that any second now was going to do me a serious mischief, I ran round the side of the house with the gander hot on my heels and found the kitchen door open. I brushed him back with a besom broom and shut the kitchen door right in the horrid bird’s beak as he continued to honk and flap angrily outside. He’s fiercer than any guard dog, I thought.

Before I saw the squalor of Mrs Wimble’s kitchen I smelt it. Cat wee and, worse, decomposing scraps of food, dust and smuts formed a film on every surface. Moggies sitting in the sink and on the table, which was covered in soil, fauna and flora as well as dirty plates and crusted cups. The Baby Belling oven housed a mother cat and her kittens not to mention the abandoned range, which appeared for all intents and purposes to be a feline hotel. I held my nose and called once more for Mrs Wimble but there was still no answer. Cautiously I made my way out of the kitchen and down the hallway, which was lined with piles of newspapers, books and more plants.

In the parlour I spotted a tall black fur hat over a high-backed faded blue armchair spotted with holes in the upholstery. Baskets of wool encircled this disintegrating throne and I was surprised to find beautifully knitted unblemished garments strewn on every stick of worm-infested furniture.

‘Mrs Wimble?’ I called softly once more.

In front of the old lady crowned in her black hat was a spinning wheel. She looked like something out of the Brothers Grimm as she slumbered majestically, ragged and alone in a forgotten house. Mrs Wimble was dressed in damask dressing gown with a discoloured golden cord tied around her shrinking waist and instead of carpet slippers she too wore Wellington boots. For the second time that day I was filled with the horror that I’d discovered a dead body. I edged closer and felt for a pulse and the old lady juddered into life as she felt the coldness of my hand on her carotid artery.

‘And who are you?’ she hissed, peering at me through the gloom.

‘I’m Sarah Hill, the new health visitor. Dr Drake asked me to call on you,’ I explained.

‘Another do-gooder,’ sneered Mrs Wimble. I didn’t know what to say. ‘Well, as you’ve come uninvited, I suggest you do some good and put the kettle on,’ she told me.

Once I’d done what passed for washing-up in this house I was able to present Mrs Wimble with a cup of tea – the milk of which had come direct from her own troublesome nanny goat.

‘Not having a brew?’ she enquired as she took a sip, her piercing grey eyes fixed on me.

‘I had one before I left, thank you,’ I excused.

‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Sarah Hill, the new health visitor.’

‘Health visitor indeed. Busybody more like it,’ she barked. ‘Hmm. Did you say that senile Dr Drake sent you?’

‘He did.’

‘Was he on this plane or a higher one when he saw fit to poke his beaky nose into my business?’ I smiled to myself but I didn’t say anything. ‘There is something in that meditating lark, I suppose,’ continued Mrs Wimble through loud slurps of tea. ‘Though I prefer to look to Mother Nature for my remedies.’

‘Are you a herbalist?’ I enquired.

‘Do you take me for a broomstick rider?’ Mrs Wimble snapped. ‘My late husband and I were both botanists.’

‘Really? I loved Botany at school,’ I replied enthusiastically.

‘Did you indeed?’ she cackled. ‘All right, Nurse. I’ll let you give me the once-over if you can tell me what tree is used to make aspirin.’

I thought back to my tutorials and the piles of open medical books in the reading room of Hackney Nurses’ Home and flipped the pages through in my mind’s eye until I saw the right one as if it was there in front of me.

‘I seem to recall the acetyl ester of salicylic acid was originally isolated from the bark of a tree,’ I answered.

The left side of Mrs Wimble’s mouth turned up in a lopsided half-smile. ‘Ah, but which tree?’

I pictured the drive through her woods trying to recall the texture of the barks. ‘The willow tree,’ I ventured timidly.

Mrs Wimble didn’t tell me if I’d answered her questions correctly. Instead the old lady changed the subject.

‘Did you meet Gray, my gander?’ she enquired, putting her tea on a side table with a collection of knitting needles. I nodded. ‘He saw off that ditsy blonde district nurse last week,’ she crowed.

‘Nurse Bates?’ I enquired.

‘Friend of yours?’