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

‘Oh yes, that James Bellamy is quite a dish, isn’t he?’ said Miss Drummond with a smile. ‘Etty went to bed early and I had the place to myself. Just me, Upstairs, Downstairs and a large gin and tonic – one of life’s lovely moments.’

‘Yes, it was a good one,’ agreed Mrs King. ‘Even the boys watched it with Jack and me – but I don’t think they’d admit it to their school friends. Then they both disappeared and camped out in the summer house all night again. I could hear Led Zeppelin drifting across the lawn until well after midnight; good job we don’t have any neighbours at our place but I don’t know what the hens think of it. Jack had to threaten to chuck a bucket of water over the pair of them to get them out of their sleeping bags and on time for the school bus this morning,’ she said with a laugh.

‘You’ve got two boys?’ I asked.

‘And a girl, Harriet, but she’s at Glasgow now doing History,’ answered Mrs King. ‘But David and John are 15 and 17 and can let themselves in after school now, which is fine as long as the cupboards are well stocked. Teenage boys never stop eating.’

Three children, a husband and livestock to take care of and she works and finds a spare minute to make homemade delicacies – was she superhuman?

‘Sit yourself down, Miss Hill,’ instructed Miss Drummond, showing me my very own desk in the corner nearest the door.

I’d never had my own desk before and here I was at a little after eight o’clock in the morning on my very first day as a health visitor sitting in a rather swish swivel chair in front of my desk drinking tea and eating homemade shortbread. It was all I could do not to swirl around and around in excitement. My eyes devoured my new office space – I’d been provided with a blotter and a wicker filing tray. Brand new pens and notepads were all laid out for me, on top of which was a set of keys for my drawers. I reached into my bag and pulled out the green leather mug and letter opener I’d commandeered from my dad’s desk and popped them in pride of place. I suddenly felt a little wave of importance and pleasure under-laced by the feeling I was playing at being a grown-up, with my new Mini and Ivy Cottage – what had I done to deserve any of it? I looked at my white telephone and thought any minute now there will be that call when they tell you it’s all been a terrible mistake and they don’t want you after all – that none of this is yours. But thankfully the phone didn’t ring. Enjoy the moment, I told myself.

‘Now you have your Mini. Did they give you a log book?’ enquired Miss Drummond. I nodded. ‘Good, good. Don’t forget to keep your petrol receipts and mileage up to date or dear Miss Presnell will want to know why. Have you met our manager yet?’

‘No,’ I replied.

‘She’s not a bad sort. Miss Presnell doesn’t bother us much does she, Mrs King?’ called out Miss Drummond without pausing for a response. ‘And she doesn’t take too much nonsense from the top brass. Though to be honest she only comes out to the sticks on high days and holidays,’ she added with a laugh. I saw Mrs King smile and arch an eyebrow at our colleague’s account of our superior officer.

‘And at 70 new pence to the gallon it’s not a bad deal,’ continued Miss Drummond. ‘Where did you train?’

‘Hackney,’ I answered.

‘Ooh, I like a girl who’s trained at a proper hospital. I started out in the Wirral and then New York before I came to the Garden of England.’

‘My parents lived in Sevenoaks for a few years and I went to school near Sunridge for a while.’

‘You’re practically a local then. You’ll know your russet from your cox,’ she chortled.

‘We haven’t got anything too gruelling for your first day. Miss Drummond and I have hearing tests at nine o’clock and I’m sorry that we’ll be out for most of the day. We’ve got a list of your patch and a big map of the area ready, you can reconnoitre the district a bit before you hit the road,’ explained Mrs King, handing me over a folder.

I eagerly opened the huge map and saw the wide expanse of countryside. ‘You’ll be doing Totley, the outskirts of Malling, The Meadows and the surrounding areas. At the moment that’s about 800 babies and children under five plus the elderly visits we undertake.’

I looked up at her eyes wide. ‘Eight hundred,’ I repeated.

‘And counting,’ she smiled, ‘not forgetting visits to the elderly to keep an eye on their general health. You’re also the school nurse for St Agatha’s and the Meadows Infant and Junior Schools. There’s a weekly clinic in Totley but luckily for you there’s only a monthly clinic run with the GP in The Meadows and at the RAF.’

‘That’s very fortunate,’ I uttered. Eight hundred children, I thought. Eight hundred! But secretly I couldn’t wait to get started. I wanted to know each one of them right now.

‘So, you sit tight for today and answer the phone. You need only go out if there’s an emergency,’ added Miss Drummond. ‘You’ve got your first clinic for Totley tomorrow afternoon, Mums and Toddlers on Wednesday and RAF clinic on Thursday – best you gen up on those. We’ll let you loose on some clients in the middle of the week; there are a few referrals from Dr Drake, our Totley GP, to work through. His scrawls take a fair bit of deciphering, so do ask if you have any questions. All the client records for your patch are in these boxes if you need to look anything up,’ she told me, tapping the two wooden index boxes already on my desk.

‘Righto,’ I replied. My fingers itching to get to work on the doctor’s referrals and plan my week.

‘And if you get a spare few minutes at lunchtime maybe toddle down to St Agatha’s Primary to introduce yourself. Mr Hopkins the headmaster is very nice and Reverend Shepherd generally pops in to have lunch with the children on a Monday. It’s all rather jolly,’ Miss Drummond informed me as she gathered up her bag.

‘Enjoy your first day,’ added Mrs King. ‘We’ll try and pop in again in a few hours and see how you are doing. I’m sure Flo will be clucking around you anyhow.’

I’d been advised to stay put and settle in slowly and yet there I was barely an hour later lost in the Kent countryside with my sparkling Mini not just covered in mud but stuck in it. Only 20 minutes earlier I had been carefully planning out my diary for the week and making well-meant plans when my telephone tingled into life.

‘Hello, Totley Clinic, health visitors,’ I answered.

‘Hello, Nurse?’ whispered a weary voice down the line. I could hear the cries of a fractious baby in the background.

‘Yes,’ I responded calmly.

‘Can you come out, Nurse? I’ve fed and fed him till I’ve not got a drop left. He won’t stop crying, he won’t go to sleep. I don’t know what to do.’

‘What’s your name please?’

‘Mandy Rudcliff.’

‘And what’s your baby’s name and their date of birth please, Mrs Rudcliff?’ I asked, my fingers already lifting the lids on the wooden boxes that contained client records – eager to get to work.

‘Craig Joseph Rudcliff. I had him on 25 August.’

‘Lovely, and what’s your address please?’

‘The Farmhouse, Treetops Farm.’

I quickly leafed through the records until I found a blank card for Craig Joseph Rudcliff; his discharge slip from Nurse Higgins had been attached with a paperclip. His primary visit was due and he was on my patch. Why not kill two birds with one stone, I decided.

‘Would you like me to come out now, Mrs Rudcliff?’

‘Quick as you can please, Nurse. And it’s the farmhouse not the bungalow at Treetops,’ she said wearily and rang off. I decided I better get to her lickety-split.

Obstructed by the quagmire I resolved there was nothing for it but to walk. I could reverse out to get back on the road to Totley but there was no way my Mini was going to make it through all that muck up the path to the farm, which I assumed was at the end of what looked like a never-ending road ascending into the clouds. I picked up my bag and swung open the door of the car and let both my feet go squelch right into the mire. Never mind the stupid map, I thought, the thing I needed right now was a good pair of wellies; from that day forth I kept a pair in the boot.

After I’d spent 10 minutes traipsing through sludge finally a house came into view. The Rudcliffs resided in a large whitewashed four-storey, double-fronted Georgian farmhouse with a patch of oval-shaped lawn serving as a front garden. A fence surrounded the property creating a barrier between Treetops Farmhouse and the gargantuan tin sheds that dominated the landscape. As I trudged nearer to the house the smell coming from the pig sheds and the noise of grunting and squealing swine was overwhelming. I noticed in the distance a newly built bungalow with a neat little garden and a border of rose bushes. It stood on top of a mound like a little castle and looked completely out of place.

I opened the gate to the farmyard and a huge hound came looming at me barking defensively. I quickly retreated and waited on the other side of the fence hoping his master would come and call him off but no one did despite all the growling and snarling from the Alsatian. I’d come this far, I wasn’t going to fall at the last hurdle. ‘Sit,’ I said firmly, staring the animal down. To my surprise the dog obeyed so I sidestepped him and gingerly made my way to the front door and rang the bell, hoping I wouldn’t be left on the doorstep too long in case my new canine friend changed his mind about me.

Mrs Rudcliff flung open the door. She was a slender woman about my height wearing a loose blue-denim shirt and jeans; she had light-brown wavy hair tied up in a ponytail and a smattering of freckles across her nose and pink cheeks. She gave me a weak smile but she looked exhausted – I suspected she was anaemic and in desperate need of sustenance and sleep. In her arms was a very robust and lengthy newborn baby; he must have been at least 10 pounds so no wonder she was finding feeding him a challenge, poor girl.

‘Hello, Mrs Rudcliff?’ I enquired. She nodded. ‘I’m Sarah Hill, the health visitor you spoke to on the telephone.’

‘Come in, Nurse,’ she said. ‘He only stopped crying about five minutes ago.’

I followed her down the dark hallway into the huge square kitchen. An elongated rectangular wooden table stood in its centre. At one end were bowls, spoons, a set of scales and bags of flour, all manner of ingredients, some ramekins and a fresh loaf of bread cooling on a wire rack. At the other end of the table was a heap of crumpled laundry amongst a few folded piles and two ironed shirts on hangers. An ironing board with a half-ironed shirt stood accusingly next to the table and on the floor was a basket filled with wet baby clothes, nappies, blankets and cloth squares, some of which had made it onto a clotheshorse to dry. The large butler sink in front of the kitchen window was sparklingly clean but a mountain of cups, plates and cutlery glared at us, waiting to be washed up. An enormous range stood in the hearth and before it was a button-backed tangerine sofa with an avocado throw hanging over the top.

Mrs Rudcliff looked about her in dismay. ‘It was neat as a new pin a fortnight ago and now as soon as I start one job the baby needs something and nothing gets finished.’

‘That’s how it is for everyone,’ I say softly.

‘Is it?’

‘Oh, yes. Between me and you, if I arrived at a house with a newborn baby that was spotless then I’d be concerned.’

She laughed a little in relief. ‘Sit yourself down, Nurse. I’ll make us some tea.’