General Chat

Can anyone remember opening doors for the senior nurses to walk through. Also sitting at the bottom of the table at lunch and tea breaks with the senior nurses always at the top. Once trained it was sleeves down and cuffs on when reporting to Matron and sleeves up and frilly cuffs back when on the ward.

My wages were £12 a month but I lived in. Also once trained we were very priveleged to have our breakfast brought on a tray to us in bed when day off. What luxury.

We were far too scared to talk to a nurse,even a year above,,I loved my frilly cuffs...and my silver buckle,I gave it to my daughter who is a trained nurse as well..,but she never had the 'fun' that we did,got all very serious.

Us nurses who lived in the nurses' home were given a bag of fresh fruit every Tuesday that we had to sign for, to make sure we ate fresh fruit. Also I remember we were given sunray treatment once a week in the Winter to prevent us getting colds.

Making the gruel and passing the Ryles tubes for the Gastric tests!

Lawrence's Line Diets for Diabetics

Making sure the patients were washed and the beds made before the day staff came on duty

Remember Lysol-never realised just how lethal that stuff was!!!

Bet

Hated the smell of that,,,,Lysol,it clung to you !
O,yes,line diets,,

My daughter also did her training but as you said Polly she certainly didn't have the fun we had.Wonderful aromas from Lysol and good old Carbolic! The minute you entered the hospital the smell hit you! Did anyone have to go to the Bolier rooms to collect the Acid for the sterilizers!

What about white hair clips to hold your cap in place and God forbid if you used brown ones.
Also being shouted at by the deputy matron ' Nurse do not run unless there is a fire'.
We used to have a 'knocker upper' which was usually a student nurse on night duty who went round the 2 nurses homes and knocked on doors with her scissors to ensure you weren't late for duty. If it was your day off you had a sign to hang on the door, but the knock was so loud you woke up anyway.

Di

And if you did have a day off you still got woken up from the `knocker upper` as she banged on the doors and the noise as the nurses on duty all rushed to get to the bathrooms first.
One of my fav books is by Monica Dickens called `One pair of Feet` and its about her days pre WW2 as a Nurse. Worth reading and def one of my favourite books.

Love and Peace
Marianne.

Urine testing!! In my day (trained 1958-1961), urine testing was fiddly. Anyone remember having to test specific gravity, also testing for albumen by heating up a test tube of urine to see if it clouded up, also using a test tube and dropping a tablet in to test for sugar to see what colour it went (blue, greem brown or orange).

E Point
I remember boiling up the urine!!!!!!,Also using the tablets for Glucose testing----often wonder how accurate these dipstick things are,but then they have the skin prick test nowadays.

Some of you were well looked after,Cocoa and biscuits left out for you and fruit---if you were a late shift we were lucky if there was just dry bread left,many a night we had dry toast with brown sauce on it and no milk left for us----- aww

Loves passing Ryles tubes

Remember first bed bath, washing male patient with 2 J cloth 'flannels' - pink for face and hands, blue for rest of body.

Asking him if he'd like to wash himself when we got to certain part of body, and he quickly washed his






face.

Kath

oh memories...yes I do remember boiling the urine for sugar and Albumin and very often on nights we did our 'own 'Testing!! Loved watching the colours change to deep orange without a thought of the results for the poor patient .As a student nurse I seemed to have spent a lot of time cleaning out medicine cupboards when visiring time etc.

Working in path lab when a cadet, the jobs I got were testing urine, faeces, setting up ESRs (by mouth suction to get blood into tube), washing petrie dishes, sterilising used glass urine sample bottles etc, etc.
My wage was £16 a month before stoppages too. Black stockings on duty, none off as you couldnt afford them very often. They werent nylons either! Black chiffon or lisle. The line diet was the first one my OH was on when he became a diabetic 42yrs ago, and it has stuck in his mind ever since, no way will he ever overeat. We had an electric kettle on our floor in the nurses home and we used to boil eggs in it. Were allowed 19 items on show in the bedroom and the cleaners complained if you had more. Jean

The wee testing and 24 hour collection...and taking that down to the path lab..
The worst and scariest bit was escorting a body to the mortuary at night...

As a student we used to have to escort the deceased to the mortuary with the porters and sign the mortuary register. Once in the mortuary the porters would play awful tricks on us and one of them would hide in a 'drawer' and rise again from under a sheet when the other one opened the drawer. Needless to say we were scared witless. Soon changed though and the escorting soon stopped when deputy matron heard about it. Thank God.
Di
Pam - my visiting times were spent in the linen room ensuring the linen was folded correctly.

O,yes.tidying the linen cupboard...such excitement...
Or cleaning the sluice....

Ah yes I'd forgotten the linen room. Other things went on the in the linen room as well?!! I also remember now one of the night nurses would be responsible for knocking up the day staff .I remember too the maids on duty in the nurses home sitting on our beds and reading any of our magazines ,also treating themselves to our perfume ,but we all got famously.Perfume being 'Hartnell in love' and 'blue grass'!

Yes, loved Monica Dickens book One Pair of Feet Marianne. Now you've made me want to unearth it for another read!

Ok - This reminiscence therapy is really helping me!!
Lets keep it going
How many of you used to write the obs on the reverse of your starched apron and then get shouted at.?
And who used a wooden spatula to write the fluid totals on so when adding up the fluid balance charts per shift you didn't have to resort to mental arithmatics. This was kept in you top pocket of your dress along with your pens.
How many did split shifts and not just afternoon. I hated the morning split shift. However after a heavy night I used to go back to bed and get rid of the hangover!
Just remembered as a group of 6 cadets living along one corridor, we had a seance and were scared witless. So much so we all slept in one room but were dragged infront of Matron to explain ourselves and were informed in no uncertain terms we were not to sleep together again.
Di