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

‘I will, Nurse,’ she said. A tone of defiance creeping into her voice. ‘But before that I’m going to telephone my mother and see if she can come for a bit.’

‘I think that’s an excellent idea, Mrs Rudcliff. I’ll call in next week and see how you are but do telephone me at the clinic if you need anything.’

As I made my way back down the path to my abandoned Mini I turned and saw Mrs Rudcliff in the window with a telephone in her hand. I grinned. Good for you, I thought. My first visit as a health visitor had been a good one but what did the other 799 and counting have in store?

When I returned to see Mrs Rudcliff at Treetops Farm the following week I fully prepared for the ascent in a pair of newly acquired black Wellington boots purchased at a smart little shop in Canterbury. I’d christened them on my second Sunday in Kent, digging over my small vegetable patch after borrowing a fork and spade from Clem. It would be a while before I could sow anything but at least I’d made a start – I was well on my way to becoming a country nurse, or so I thought.

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I knew I was frowning slightly as Flo poured me a cup of tea before the doors opened for the two o’clock Totley baby clinic on Tuesday afternoon. I’d been stunned when Mrs Martha Bunyard, a matriarch of clinic volunteers, had practically shoved me into the cramped consulting room away from the hall when I arrived, but now I was fuming.

‘Your predecessor always saw mothers in here, Nurse. That’s the way we’ve always done it in Totley. Stops time-wasters taking liberties,’ she had informed me.

We’ll see, I thought as I agitatedly sipped my tea. Flo looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Don’t want to rock the boat at your very first clinic, do you?’ she suggested tentatively. ‘Martha Bunyard and Doris Bowyer have been running things round here for years, Nurse. No one likes change, do they?’

‘Hmm,’ I replied. I thought of Susan, whose baby I’d helped deliver only days before, and felt a pang of sympathy for her. The stalwart so-called helper, who was most likely banking on me being out of sight and out of mind, was probably a relative of Susan’s new husband, his mother even – poor girl.

Flo straightened the biscuits on her trolley. ‘Have you got through that vegetable box we left you, yet?’ she asked, changing the subject.

‘Still working my way through it. Best produce I’ve ever tasted,’ I enthused.

Flo beamed with pride. ‘I don’t like to boast but my Clem has won “Best in Show” for his root vegetables at the village fete every single year for the last decade. Beetroot, carrot, potato, you name it, he’s won the blue ribbon for it. Mr Hopkins and Father Nick are almost green with …’ She stopped herself. ‘Pride comes before a fall,’ she reminded herself. ‘Lots to do; while you’re all out and about I think I’ll give the health visitors’ room a quick once over with a duster,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Mrs Drummond does have rather a lot of knick-knacks that are magnets for dust,’ she added, bustling off behind her tea trolley. ‘And Mrs Jefferies is in today. She’ll be running a gloved finger over everything, you mark my words.’

Oh yes, I still had to meet the fourth health visitor; ‘Mrs N. Jefferies’ read the little name plaque she had facing outwards on her desk. I scowled again at the thought of Mrs Martha Bunyard telling me what to do. Maybe I’d needed to be firmer from the off? I must stop sulking, I decided. I needed to observe and see how it all went. If it worked for the mothers then it didn’t matter if I was shut away in the dreary claustrophobic backroom.

There was a tap on the semi-open door. I saw a woman in a yellow and cream V-necked floral dress with tiny round buttons plus matching russet jacket and sandals standing in the doorway. Her almost white blonde hair was pulled off her face by a couple of golden combs. Her eyes wrinkled into deep furrowed lines as she gave me a broad open smile.

‘Knock, knock,’ she called as she stepped into the room. ‘I thought I’d come and say hello. I’m Monika Michalak, the clinic doctor.’

‘Where have they shut you away?’ I asked, stepping forward. ‘Sorry,’ I corrected myself, realising how much I was giving away, ‘I’m Sarah Hill, the new health visitor.’

‘Don’t worry. They do rather like to tuck us out of harm’s way in the broom cupboard, don’t they?’ she said, laughing. ‘I turn up and do my bit. But I often think it’s a shame we only see a mother by request.’

I smiled thoughtfully, drinking in the situation. Wait and see, wait and see, Sarah, don’t be too hasty, I said to myself.

Dr Michalak cast her eyes down, smiling shyly as she checked her wristwatch. ‘Doors open in a minute – action stations,’ she said merrily as she slipped away, back to her own closet.

Half an hour later and there I was drumming my fingers on the desk not having seen a single soul. Had nobody come yet? As a student health visitor I’d never been to a clinic that wasn’t packed right from the off. Maybe people didn’t go to clinic here; had I come to somewhere that had no need for me? ‘I’m not spending every Tuesday afternoon twiddling my thumbs. I’m going to go out there to see for myself what’s going on.’ I gingerly made my way to the main reception. Three of the four clinic volunteers were in a little huddle in a closed circle of chairs having cups of tea and biscuits in a corner; Mrs Martha Bunyard was very much the Queen Bee. Toddlers were running around or whining hot and bored with nothing to do. At least one of them was doing something helpful by weighing the babies, albeit fully clothed. None of the changing tables had been set up and chairs for the mothers to sit on seemed to be very few and far between. ‘It’s not good enough,’ I fumed.

‘Any mothers waiting to be seen?’ I asked my so-called volunteers.

‘What you doing out here, Nurse?’ replied Mrs Martha Bunyard in an accusatory tone. ‘We’ll tell you if anyone wants you.’ And before I knew it I was back in my box. I only saw three mothers during the clinic and felt utterly useless. I glumly trudged back to the office to see if there’d been any messages – probably not; maybe the mothers didn’t want to see me? As I shuffled past the clinic room I overheard Mrs Martha Bunyard saying, ‘Slip of a girl, barely a nurse. What does she know about babies and motherhood that we don’t?’

Fuming, I marched up to her and made a declaration of war. ‘I’ll have the clinic keys from now on please, Mrs Bunyard.’

She gaped at me for a few moments before replying, ‘I’ve had these keys for 30 years.’

‘Well, they’ll be perfectly safe with me.’

‘What do you need them for?’

‘It’ll give me the opportunity to set up the clinic in a new way. Next week I’d like you to come 10 minutes beforehand and I’ll run through the changes with you all.’

‘We’ve been doing this clinic like this for decades.’

‘Times change.’

‘Not in Totley.’

‘The keys please, Mrs Bunyard.’

Reluctantly she opened her handbag. ‘They’d be much safer with me. You won’t lose them, will you? I’ve had this same set since 1945.’

‘I’m perfectly capable of looking after a pair of keys, Mrs Bunyard.’

She frowned. ‘The silvery one is for the toy cupboard.’

‘Thank you.’ Not that they’d bothered to put any toys out in the first place.

‘And the brass one is for the metal cupboard where we keep the baby milk and whatnot.’

‘That seems simple enough,’ I said, smiling through my teeth as I took the keys out of her grasping hand and sauntered off back to my desk, leaving a buzz of whispered outrages behind me.

A plump woman with grey hair pulled back off her round face highlighting a bulbous red nose was blocking the entrance to the health visitors’ office. She wore a long plain tweed skirt teamed with a tightly buttoned dusty brown shirt. She was clearly leaving as her alligator handbag was securely nestled in the crook of her arm, car keys already in hand, balancing a large tin of what looked like Mrs King’s homemade shortbread biscuits and a stack of files underneath it.

‘Hello, I’m Sarah Hill, the new health visitor,’ I greeted her.

‘I don’t have time for pleasantries, but as you’re here you can make yourself useful and carry these to my car,’ she said, giving me the wad of records but keeping tight hold of the biscuits.

I followed her in silence out of the clinic to the car park, where she plonked everything on the backseat of her own Mini.

‘My, my! I would have thought you a student nurse on community practice at first glance,’ she remarked, her eyes cast down at my short skirt. ‘When I trained nurses wore skirts a good four inches below the knee on and off-duty.’

I wanted to ask if that had been during the Crimean War but I bit my lip.

‘Are you finished for the day, Mrs Jefferies?’ I asked. It was only four o’clock and I knew Mrs King and Miss Drummond would be back soon to write up their notes.

‘I am, but I don’t see what business it is of yours.’

I didn’t know what to say. She got into the driver’s seat of her car. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Mrs Jefferies,’ I said, attempting cheeriness.

‘You will not. I only come to Totley Clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays.’

‘Oh, are you part-time?’ I asked innocently.

Her eyes burned into me. ‘I work from the doctors’ surgery in Malling the rest of the week. I do not visit farm workers and villagers. Totley is not under my jurisdiction I am happy to say. They are entirely in your hands, Miss Hill. Good afternoon,’ she ticked me off before slamming her car door on me.

I scowled as I forlornly watched Mrs Jefferies speed off in a cloud of dust. They certainly make the women thorny in these parts, I ruminated, agitatedly flicking Mrs Martha Bunyard’s precious keys back and forth in my hand. I had notes to write up but what with overbearing volunteers at clinic and now, to top it all, it being clear that Mrs N. Jefferies had taken a distinct dislike to me on first sight, I started to feel perhaps moving to Totley had been a terrible mistake. I flicked the keys faster and faster, back and forth, biting my lower lip, and then somehow the keys slipped out my hand and down the drain of the clinic car park. ‘Oh hell, that woman had those keys for 30 years and I’d not had them for 10 minutes and look at what I’ve done,’ I lamented, getting onto my hands and knees to see if there was any way to retrieve them from the drain. What a mess!