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

The girl nodded and ran out of the room, glad to be away. Flo popped her head round the door and gave me the requested equipment then tactfully retreated.

Now it was just us, I repeated my question to the expectant mother. ‘When did you start to experience labour pains, Mrs Bunyard?’

‘My waters broke before I put my dress on to go to church to get wed,’ she said, panting, followed by a howl as she experienced a deep long contraction. I held her hand and waited for the wave of pain to be over.

‘Do you mind if I take a look and see how the baby is doing?’ I asked.

‘Help yourself, Nurse,’ she said breathlessly.

I gathered up some cushions for her to rest on the floor to give her tired arms and legs a break. Her head flopped down as she tucked herself up into a ball. I pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and scooted round to examine her.

‘How many hours ago did your waters break?’

‘It’s only been three hours. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want any delay, any excuse to postpone it. His lot would love that! I didn’t want this baby born out of wedlock,’ she whimpered. I could hear her breath shuddering out of her as she waited for the next contraction to come, and she didn’t get to rest for long because a minute later she was gritting her teeth again.

‘You’re quite far on,’ I said gently.

‘I know, I know,’ wailed the poor girl.

Lisa returned with the jugs of water and ice, and then scuttled off again.

‘Do you think you could drink a little water?’ I asked. She nodded and I held the glass as she took shallow sips.

‘How many weeks along are you?’ I asked.

‘Not long enough. New Year’s Eve it was. I met Aly hop picking last autumn and we got along. I knew he’d taken a shine to me. Made me promise to come to the New Year’s Eve party they were having at the Brewery and, well, here we are.’

I smiled and counted in my head. ‘You’re 36 weeks?’ I estimated. She nodded.

I hope the ambulance gets a wriggle on, I thought. Early baby coming this fast, they’d definitely need to go to Maidstone Hospital to be checked out. Steady now, Sarah, I told myself. Don’t alarm her. All the possible scenarios of what could be happening were playing through my head and some of them were not good.

‘The baby’s almost here, isn’t it?’ she cried.

‘Not long now,’ I said softly as I held her hand.

‘Oh, I can feel another contraction coming, it’s a big one.’ She gripped my arms as she raised herself to squat again between the two chairs and I mirrored her, doing my best to keep her safe and supported.

‘Whatever happens, don’t let them take the baby away, please,’ she begged.

Then to my everlasting relief, the midwife appeared just in the nick of time.

‘Evening, my sweetness. How far along are we then?’ she asked, smiling broadly, with two dimples in her round black cheeks.

In that moment the community midwife, Ernestine Higgins, looked like an angel to me – her curvaceous figure in the doorway surrounded by a glow of light coming from the disco, crowned in her pillbox navy hat on top of her wavy bobbed black hair that had one perfect streak of white in it from the left side of her temple that ran all the way down to the back of her neck. Her navy uniform was perfectly pressed with a white starched Peter Pan collar and a thick blue belt held in place by a shiny silver buckle. The Angel Gabriel in that moment wouldn’t have been a more welcome sight. The midwife shut the door and muffled the sounds of the Bay City Rollers coming from the hall.

‘I’m very glad to see you, Nurse,’ I told her. ‘Contractions are only about a minute apart now. Mrs Bunyard’s water broke only three hours ago.’

‘I see. I’ve not seen you before have I, Mrs Bunyard?’ enquired Nurse Higgins.

‘No, I’m from Essex,’ replied Mrs Bunyard. ‘Or I was until today.’

‘And is this your first baby?’ asked Nurse Higgins but she didn’t get a reply as Mrs Bunyard had another contraction. ‘Hand me some gloves please, Nurse. Let the dog see the rabbit.’ The midwife assessed the situation quickly and then picked up one of the freshly laundered towels Flo had brought over from the clinic. ‘Looks like we have everything we need,’ she said cheerfully. ‘How are your fielding skills, Nurse?’ she asked as she handed me the towel.

Her deep-brown eyes were staring intently at Mrs Bunyard’s other end. I caught her eye and she nodded in confirmation.

‘It’s time, my sweetness,’ she told Mrs Bunyard. ‘The head is almost through. Next time you feel a contraction coming I want you to push into your bottom and let’s get this baby out.’ She’d barely got her sentence out when Mrs Bunyard screwed up her eyes and started to push. ‘Quick, catch, Nurse,’ called the midwife to me and there was a gush and the baby popped out. I hadn’t been expecting to be holding a beautiful newborn baby in my arms on my first day in Totley, but I couldn’t help but feel blessed as this tiny new life let out her first lusty cries.

‘She’s a wee one but there’s nothing wrong with her lungs, is there?’ I told Mrs Bunyard as, mesmerised, she watched her child with tears rolling down her cheeks.

Nurse Higgins sprang into action taking out all her equipment from her bag as we worked together silently and companionably, cutting the little one’s cord and clearing the baby’s passages. I was relieved all seemed to be well and that I hadn’t forgotten my obstetrics training.

‘Excellent work, ladies,’ Nurse Higgins said as I placed the baby gently into the new mother’s arms for the first time.

‘Glad you were here … Nurse?’

‘Hill,’ I replied. ‘I’m the new health visitor.’

‘I see,’ replied the midwife. ‘Good catch, by the way. Have you thought about joining the village cricket team?’ She laughed. ‘My husband’s on the committee and they’re always looking for someone in the slips.’

2 (#u959107b8-efc0-5076-8968-f3d8b15b50c2)

I tipped my half-eaten piece of toast into the bin and put my plate, cup and saucer into the sink with a rattle. Again I glanced up at the square orange clock on the wall of my kitchen; I could have sworn it was ticking more slowly than usual – how was it still only eight o’clock in the morning? I wasn’t due to start at the clinic till nine; would it be bad form to be there before everyone else on my first day or show how committed I was? Come on, Sarah, no time like the present, I told myself, and decided the best option would be to locate my desk and find my way around the clinic unobserved so I wouldn’t lose the whole of Monday morning working out where everything was and feeling like a postulant. Before I left I inspected myself once more in the long mirror at the top of the stairs to check I was presentable. Was my chosen ensemble of a square-necked sky-blue dress a couple of inches above the knee teamed with a cream wide-collared blouse covered in cornflowers professional enough? My shoes were smart at least thanks to my mum buying me a pair of tan-coloured pumps for a big do at Dad’s work over the summer.

Pushing my black-rimmed spectacles firmly onto my nose I thought how much older I looked than on my first day as a trainee nurse, but did I really know enough to be let loose on the mothers and babies of Kent? I dearly hoped so. I thought wistfully of Daddy Davis, the charge nurse at Hackney, who’d insisted I always wear my glasses and what Sister Nivern, the harridan in charge of Infants Ward, would say to my loose, long dark hair, free from pins and tightly wound buns. Funny how health visitors were in mufti but midwives and district nurses still had their uniforms and were recognisable in the community. When you thought about it, a health visitor on your doorstep could be anyone; the Avon lady or a well-meaning caller from the Women’s Institute perhaps – but maybe that was the point?

At the front door of the clinic I rooted around in my brown leather shoulder bag for the key Flo had given me and was alarmed to discover the door was already open. I remembered in Hackney my mentor Miss Knox telling me how often the clinic there was broken into by gangs and addicts searching for drugs – but surely this wasn’t the case in Totley? I crept down the chequered tiled entrance hall cursing the resounding click of my heels. Filled with uncertainty I put my hand on the handle of the first door. ‘Consultation Room’ was engraved on a brass sign but this door was locked. Past this was the large empty room that was used for the clinic. Grey plastic chairs were stacked against the wall behind a low table adorned with neatly piled copies of Woman’s Own and Horse & Hound. A small wooden desk was pushed up against the wall and above it a poster advertising tins of baby milk. Beside it stood a couple of comfortable chairs, a set of scales, and a stack of plastic bowls and tissues on the changing tables. I pushed open another door but it was only stairs leading down to the dark cellar that served as the clinic’s storeroom and I didn’t fancy investigating any further down there. When I poked my head round the doors to the loo and the small kitchen a strong smell of bleach wafted at me from each. I noted that though these facilities were a bit tired and dated, like my little flat, Flo certainly kept them gleaming and in good order.

Finally, I came to the ‘Health Visitors’ Office’ at the bottom of the corridor. The door was ajar. I peeped round the edge of the door and observed there was a desk in each of the four corners of the room and at the tidiest desk nearest the picture window sat a woman writing with a slim silver pen. A perfect line of glass vases of different shapes and sizes in pink, blue, green and yellow glass were beautifully arranged on the window sill. The coloured glass reflected the morning sunshine in a brilliant rainbow across the room. A large emerald and sapphire coloured speckled vase filled with white roses and blue and lilac freesias sat on her desk next to a collection of decorative silver photo frames. The elegant woman was wearing tortoise-shell spectacles on a gold chain round her neck, a perfectly pressed moss-green linen skirt and jacket and a violet blouse. Several rows of pea-green glass beads hung loosely round her neck as well as a gold oval-shaped locket. She was not young and must have been in her mid-forties; to me, she was the epitome of sophistication and style and not what I had expected of a country health visitor in the least. I hovered in the doorway for a few seconds watching her before she realised I was there. I couldn’t help but feel a little tatty by comparison and missed the reassurance of my nurse’s uniform. I nervously rocked onto the outer edges of my feet, scuffing my new shoes until a few moments later she sensed my presence. In one swift movement she immediately got to her feet while simultaneously pushing her reading glasses on top of her shiny black cropped hair to get a better look at me.

‘Ah, Miss Hill, we’re so glad you’ve come to join us,’ she said warmly as she quickly walked over and ushered me in. ‘Let me show you your desk. I’m Hermione Drummond.’

‘It’s lovely to meet you, errr’ – was she a Miss or a Mrs? Oh, help, I couldn’t very well call her ‘Nurse’.

She immediately saw my dilemma, ‘Miss Drummond. Unmarried, thank heavens,’ she told me with a chuckle.

The door was nudged open with a bump and another very lofty woman stood in the doorway dressed in a burgundy polo-necked jumper and a pale-grey and brown zig-zag-patterned long skirt and cardigan. Her wavy grey hair was scooped up in large combs at the sides of her head. Unlike Miss Drummond who had a slightly bohemian air, this health visitor wore no jewellery except a gold wedding band and a three-stoned diamond ring, but she was just as smart and graceful.

I wondered if excellent deportment had been a prerequisite to health-visitor training in days gone by. Both my new colleagues were tall and filled with quiet confidence – at a little over five foot I couldn’t help but feel that I didn’t quite measure up in more ways than one. Stand up straight, Sarah, I told myself, stretching myself out a little more and trying to look at ease in my new surroundings. In Hackney I could be nose to chest with an outright East End gangster and not turn a hair and yet here I was inwardly quivering like a school girl. Get a grip, I told myself, as I forced my nerves down and returned their friendly smiles with a big grin of appreciation at this amiable welcome.

‘Ah, Mrs King. You’ll see our newest addition, Miss Hill, is with us bright and early,’ Miss Drummond informed her.

Mrs King placed the wooden tray she’d been carrying onto her desk. I noted the hand-embroidered tray cloth with delicate lace edges, all laid out with a white china tea service patterned with bright green hens and foliage. Standards were clearly very high at Totley Clinic; no upturned tea chest and illicit stash of shop-bought biscuits for them.

‘I had a feeling we’d see you sooner rather than later, Miss Hill,’ proclaimed Mrs King with a smile. ‘Hence the extra cup and saucer this morning,’ she explained as she poured out the tea. There was also a stack of delicious-looking shortbread on the tray, which made my depleted appetite suddenly reappear.

‘Shortbread?’ she enquired. ‘I made it yesterday evening while dinner was in the oven,’ she told me, offering me the plate.

‘Really! I had a Vesta curry on a tray in front of the telly and watched Upstairs, Downstairs,’ I replied, astonished, and helping myself to a piece. Sarah, why did you say that, I scolded myself, shoving the shortbread into my mouth to stopper it. Homemade shortbread – my, it was so good.