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

I reluctantly pulled out my precious keys from the pocket of my denim shorts. ‘CLEM-eennntt,’ called Flo loudly. Clem popped his head up over the garden fence. Flo chucked the keys at him without saying a word and he gave a little half-salute and scuttled off to do her bidding.

A few yards down the lane was a tatty-looking gate that stood between two enormous blackberry bushes, with a rusty catch on it. Flo struggled to open the rusty catch and gave the gate a good kick; in response it opened with a shrill squeak.

‘I’ll get Clem to oil that tonight,’ she said more to herself than to me. ‘This is the garden. You go into the clinic through the front door of the cottage. You see there’s a side passage next to that little car park – well, that’ll bring you from the street right to your garden. The stairs are at the back to give you a little bit of privacy.’

She tutted as we walked down the long narrow plot, past the ancient apple, pear and cherry trees, neglected vegetable patches and an abandoned greenhouse. I looked at my garden longingly. It had so much potential. This was good earth. I could save a fortune if I got it going again.

‘I hope you don’t think Clem and I have been neglecting our duties,’ whispered Flo. ‘Only Nurse Hunter, who was the old district nurse who lived in the cottage until three months back, wouldn’t touch the garden. Wouldn’t let us lend a hand neither. She let it go to wrack and ruin. It’s criminal.’

‘Oh, dear. I like gardening. Perhaps you and Clem could help me restore it to its former glory, if it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Would you like that, Nurse?’ I nodded enthusiastically. ‘It would be an absolute pleasure. I’ve got a good feeling about you,’ she whispered conspiratorially, nudging me gently in the ribs.

‘Didn’t the new district nurse want the cottage?’ I asked as Flo rummaged in her pockets for the keys.

‘Oh, that one. She’s not much older than you and she likes a good time. No, Nurse Bates didn’t want to be in Totley. She turned down Ivy Cottage and opted for the bright lights of Maidstone. Wants to be near all them discotheques and swanky restaurants if you ask me.’

I quite liked the sound of Nurse Bates already. I was only in my mid-twenties; maybe I should have opted for nightlife over country life too. I’d been so thrilled to be offered the job and the flat that I hadn’t really thought about how much I was giving up by moving to the sticks. Oh well, too late now, I said to myself. And I really was quite excited about my garden. I’d done plenty of going out during my Hackney days – it was time to be grown-up off-duty as well as on, I resolved.

‘If you don’t mind me saying, Nurse, you’re the youngest health visitor I’ve seen – by a long way.’

I smiled. I didn’t say actually the youngest in the country by all accounts.

Flo produced the keys and held them up to my face. ‘Want to open the door to your new home?’ she asked with a twinkle in her grey eyes. I eagerly took them off her and rattled the heavy old key in the archaic lock. Flo ceremoniously pushed open the pale-blue door with a flourish and stepped back to let me cross the threshold to my new home.

I ran up the narrow staircase, my hand running up the wooden bannisters newly painted in creamy yellow. They led straight into the kitchen and living area. It was large and bright with a window seat overlooking Main Road. It was, as Flo had said, spick and span, though a little old fashioned with frilly floral curtain covered cupboards and a beautiful old butler sink sparklingly clean. Two faded chintz armchairs were arranged neatly opposite a matching sofa and a pale-blue Formica table stood in the kitchen surrounded by bright-yellow dining chairs. On it was a box of fruit and vegetables, some milk, eggs, a loaf of bread, a packet of tea and a fruit cake next to a little vase of roses.

‘Did you get these for me, Flo?’ I asked, looking through the box of goodies.

‘It’s a little something to get you started,’ she clucked.

‘Thank you so much, that’s incredibly kind. Let me give you some money for it,’ I insisted, reaching for my purse. I was grateful for their kindness and generosity and they didn’t even know me.

‘Put your money away, Nurse. It’s all from our garden anyway and I made the bread and the cake as today’s one of my baking days, and the milk is from the cow I keep at my sister’s. So, it didn’t cost nothing.’ Flo quickly changed the subject. ‘There’s a double bedroom at the back overlooking the garden,’ she continued with the guided tour. ‘The bathroom is through there and you’ll find a little storage cupboard with a hoover and brushes in it at the end of the corridor.’

‘It’s lovely,’ I enthused as I peeked out of the window onto the street below. Flo perched next to me on the window seat. The wedding party was now strewn around the lawn of the Village Hall. There were children running around, men drinking beer and women in floppy hats sipping wine in the sunshine. The bride and groom were greeting people as they walked past them into the hall.

‘I’ll have to pop over to the church soon and help the vicar tidy up – he’s not married yet, bless him and he doesn’t know a cornflower from a poppy,’ Flo told me.

‘I hope you didn’t miss the wedding on my account?’ I asked.

‘No, wasn’t invited,’ she sniffed sharply. ‘His family’s no better than they ought to be. Him, his brothers, his dad and his uncles all work up at the brewery and I would think they drink as much as they brew; no wonder the old place is on its way out. And she’s not been in the village five minutes and her family very much keeps themselves to themselves. They’re not even from Kent! Came from some town in Essex by all accounts. And you don’t have to be a nurse to see you’ll be visiting that girl sooner rather than later,’ remarked Flo with a knowing nod.

I can’t say I was salivating with the imparting of so much village gossip. I felt another short pang for city life and the anonymity of it all. Totley had looked idyllic as I drove through, but clearly life was going to be rather more sedate from now on. I sighed to myself.

The bride and groom eventually disappeared into the Village Hall after greeting the last of their guests. Flo left me to explore the rest of the flat on my own. I could hear the singing of the kettle as she prepared a little tea party to celebrate my arrival. I heard heavy footsteps running up the stairs. When I returned to the kitchen Clem was panting with his hands on his old knees as he tried to catch his breath.

‘Clem, where’s the nurse’s belongings? What have you been doing, you old fool?’ scolded Flo.

‘Come quick, Nurse. Village Hall. The bride – she’s not well,’ puffed Clem.

I’d barely been there half an hour and was already summoned to my first medical emergency. Was this what life as a village health visitor was going to be like? I thought it would be dull compared with hospital life. How wrong I was and how glad I was to be given the wrong first impression of Totley.

Clem led me at a gallop across the street to the Village Hall. The groom and his mates had already opened a huge barrel of scrumpy and were freely pouring it into tankards from the makeshift bar. Young girls danced around their handbags in the small square of dance floor. The speakers pumped out KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘Get Down Tonight’. It wasn’t even five o’clock but the tranquil scene of a quiet country wedding had been transformed into a rowdy gathering of half-cut young locals. At this stage in the proceedings the youthful wedding guests were still divided into male and female, while the older crowd looked on from the sidelines – safe from speculation and free to observe in a straight row of chairs against the walls of the hall. They sat either still, their knees together sipping sherry in between tuts and the sucking in of teeth, or attempted to lounge on the uncomfortable-looking red plastic chairs while watching the heady scene wistfully, wishing they could join in with the youngsters.

Flo was hot on our heels. When we reached the back of the hall Clem stopped abruptly at the side door.

‘We’ll take it from here, Clem,’ Flo instructed, stepping forward and relieving him of duty.

As soon as he was given a reprieve Clem scurried off back to his garden and Bessie his beloved pig. I wished I could go with him.

‘What is the medical emergency?’ I asked Flo under my breath.

‘I would have thought that was obvious. She’s having a baby.’

‘Who?’

‘The bride.’

‘Have you called the midwife?’

‘Yes, but she’s in Malling, it’ll take her at least half an hour to get here.’

Oh help, I thought. I’m not a midwife, I’m a health visitor and only just. Every baby I’ve delivered was during my obstetrics training in a hospital! I took a deep breath – I needed to take charge of the situation. This was nothing I couldn’t handle. Pull yourself together, Sarah, I scolded myself. How far on can the girl be? First babies take hours and she’s probably in first-stage labour or maybe even a false alarm brought on by the excitement of the wedding. Don’t let your nerves get the better of you.

‘Right, I’ll take it from here,’ I told Flo. ‘Well done for calling the midwife but can you call an ambulance too. We don’t want any surprises, do we?’

‘Just as you say, Nurse. Give me a whistle if you need anything. I’ve got the keys to the clinic. I can pop in and get whatever you want until the midwife or the ambulance get here.’

‘Some surgical rubber gloves and towels would be good for a start. Do you know what a foetal stethoscope is?’

‘I certainly do,’ Flo replied a little curtly.

‘Excellent, well one of those too if you would,’ I said with a broad smile. Flo was pacified.

‘Righto, Nurse,’ she replied, hurrying back to the clinic, glad to be of use and in the thick of it.

When I opened the door to the small cramped side room I did not find what I had been expecting; I’d imagined a slightly pink-faced bride pacing around with early labour pains. No, instead I found a frightened young woman with her dress half off, squatting between two red plastic chairs, using the seats as arm supports. An even younger bridesmaid still in her fresh buttercup gown looked pale-faced as she watched from behind the panting newlywed, whose previously neat bridal hair-do was now a tangled mess around her hot red face, her make-up smudged around her overly bright eyes.

‘Hello. I’m Sarah Hill, the new health visitor,’ I explained quickly and calmly, closing the door behind me.

‘Thank God, you’ve come, Nurse. Susie Smith, I mean Bunyard. Mrs Susan Bunyard,’ said the bride, panting.

‘The midwife is on her way, Mrs Bunyard. But if you could put up with me until she gets here, I think we’ll be able to manage between us.’ She smiled briefly and then closed her eyes in preparation for the next contraction. ‘When did you first start to experience labour pains?’ I asked.

Susan Bunyard tried to answer me but she couldn’t catch her breath. I turned my gaze towards the nervous-looking bridesmaid and smiled. The poor child couldn’t have been more than 13, and she looked terrified. ‘I’m Lisa. Susie’s sister,’ she squeaked.

‘Right, Lisa. Could you go and find me a jug of water, some glasses and ice if you can,’ I told her.