Training in the 60's

[Magpie]

I had wanted to be a nurse but started by doing my Nursery Nursing course in Cheltenham - such a genteel town you would think!! For the first 3 months we were not allowed to do very much with the toddlers and couldn't touch the babies.Life consisted of all the dirty jobs. we had to clean all those little lavatories with a horrible gritty powder and a cloth,sluice all the dirty nappies and pants and mop up any "accidents" the children had.The really hard physical job at the end of the day was to apply floor polish in the rooms used by the babies and the toddlers then we had to make it shine using a heavy "bumper" which we had to rub the floor with and get a brilliant polish to satisfy the Matron! I quickly learnt the Monday routine of delousing the children as this was a Day Nursery, the Matron also had the mothers in to treat their hair as well,indeed we used to see so many lice that I collected a match box full to take to college for our Health Tutor to show to the other students!! As part of this training we had to work for 2 weeks in the Maternity Hospital, imagine my fear at going into the dining room for my first meal, I was so scared and went and sat on an empty table - the room went silent, everyone stared and then a kindly midwife came over and told me to move as I was sitting in the Matrons chair on the Sisters table. I was also told to make the midwives a cup of tea in the ward kitchen (which was banned) not only did I get caught but made the dealy mistake of using some expressed breast milk! Ithen moved to a residential nursery in a beautiful old house near Stroud, I passed my NNEB and at 18 became a Staff Nurse in charge of the Baby Nursery (12 under 18 months plus a 4 year old handicapped child) my bedroom adjoined the unit, life was hectic but happy.I then applied to do my SRN/RSCN training in Birmingham,more of this later

[markwatson]

cant wait for the next instalment love hearing of the past many thanks