Linda Fairley - The Midwife’s Here! - The Enchanting True Story of One of Britain’s Longest Serving Midwives

Jo explained that she’d done a bedpan round on the cardiac ward and had misjudged how full one of the covered metal pans was when she carried it rather too hastily to the sluice.

‘I think the poor man must have been hanging on to that lot for a week,’ she said, holding her nose dramatically and pretending to gag.

‘Once I’d changed and collected the next set of pans from the other side of the ward, I then managed to splatter myself in hot, orange-coloured urine. It was toxic, I swear!’

‘Yuk!’ I said, thinking Mrs Roache’s vomit didn’t seem quite so repulsive after all. ‘At least you can laugh about it.’

‘Needs must,’ Jo replied, somewhat begrudgingly.

Linda was looking very pleased with herself and couldn’t wait to tell us she had given her first injection the day before, which we were all quite jealous of.

‘What was it like?’ we chirped.

‘It was as easy as pie,’ she beamed. ‘Mind you, thanks to Sister Barnes I did have a whale of a man as my first victim. He said he didn’t feel a thing, which was hardly surprising with all that blubber on his backside!’

Sister Barnes was my favourite sister. I’d spent several days between placements helping out on her orthopaedic ward, and every time I saw her she was smiling. She was big and blonde and, unlike practically all the other sisters, she had a man-friend whom she mentioned often and was clearly very much in love with. Her happiness seemed to rub off on those around her and she had a wonderful, calming influence on her staff and patients alike.

I learned from a third year that Sister Barnes had trained at the MRI and was still in her thirties, making her one of the youngest sisters I encountered. She always made herself available to us young students, telling us that she remembered her own training well and was there to help. If we had any questions whatsoever, we were to knock on her door and simply ask.

I admired Sister Barnes and, despite my difficulties, I aspired to be like her. How wonderful it would be to become a successful sister like her, and inspire students in the way she inspired me! The thought cheered me up. Hospital life was tough, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make a success of it and come out smiling, just like Sister Barnes.

I listened attentively as Mr Tate dished out the narrow plastic Ryles tubes, which he explained were used either to deliver liquid food to the patient, or to ‘aspirate’ or empty the stomach contents, typically before an operation.

‘I want you to practise in pairs,’ he said. ‘Nurse Lawton and Nurse Maudsley, here are your tubes.’

Jo and I looked at each other cautiously, but were secretly quite thrilled about this lesson. If we were to be let loose on the patients with Ryles tubes, we knew we must have earned some trust and respect from our superiors, and were progressing well.

‘Please watch very carefully,’ Mr Tate continued. He picked out a student from another group, a fashionable-looking girl called Cynthia Weaver, and he set about demonstrating how to insert the thin tube into her nose and throat and then gently down into her stomach.

As she lay with her head on a pillow on a low couch, I could see Cynthia clench her fists and bite her lips until they went blue as Mr Tate threaded and teased the tube patiently up her right nostril. He gave a running commentary about the amount of force and manipulation required at each stage.

There was no need for him to tell us when it had reached Cynthia’s throat and stomach because she gagged and wriggled uncomfortably, her silky bobbed hair dancing around the pillow.

It was my turn to be a ‘patient’ next, and I was thankful to have Jo, whose self-confidence never faltered, as my ‘nurse’. She proved quite adept at navigating my nasal passage and manoeuvring the tube down my throat, and I was surprised to find it didn’t hurt one bit. The sensation was completely alien to me, though, and my eyes watered and I began to heave as it passed down into my stomach.

‘Mission accomplished,’ Jo said triumphantly, while I swallowed a whole pint of water in record time to lessen the sensation and keep the tube in place long enough for Mr Tate to acknowledge Jo’s work.

I found it surprisingly easy to replicate the process the other way round, and Mr Tate congratulated us on our efforts. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Textbook work.’ He was always succinct in his praise, but it meant a great deal.

Janice and Nessa were paired together, and I noticed they were both very quiet. This wasn’t unusual for Nessa. She was probably the cleverest of us all and was always diligently focused on the job in hand. Janice, however, didn’t look her normal assured self.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked as we sat down later in the canteen.

We each had a plate of unidentifiable meat, grey mashed potato and pellet-like peas. It looked totally unappetising, but we usually managed to eat a huge helping of food at each sitting, followed by a steaming pudding with lumpy custard you could stand your spoon up in. No matter what it looked like we tucked in, knowing we needed all the energy we could get through the day.

‘Fine, I suppose,’ Janice replied as she forked her food into her mouth robotically and stared into space. There was a moment of silence before she added, ‘To tell the truth, I’m not sure this is the career for me.’ Pushing her half-eaten meal away she shrugged her shoulders and asked, ‘How about you?’

‘A bit the same, I suppose,’ I found myself reluctantly admitting. ‘When I did my first placement at the eye unit, I thought I was fine. The worst thing I ever saw was someone’s eyeball dangling on their cheek. The rest of it was all putting on eye patches, administering eye drops, sterilising needles, taking people to the toilet, helping them into the bath. They weren’t ill, not physically ill. Now it’s all gangrene and vomit and pain and suffering, I’m finding it hard.’

Janice surveyed me. ‘I think we’re different,’ she said. ‘You’re a naturally caring person, Linda. You’ve got what it takes. I can’t even stomach helping people have a bath or go to the loo. How can you touch their bodies and wipe their behinds? I just can’t do it.’

I had never seen a man naked until I worked in the eye unit. Even Graham’s body remained something of a mystery to me, though we’d been together for well over a year by now. A bit of hanky-panky was allowed but nice girls waited until they were married before having sex; that’s how I was brought up. Despite living such a sheltered life, naked bodies didn’t alarm me in the slightest, and it had never occurred to me to be squeamish about bodily functions. I had taken it in my stride and focused on what I could do to help the patients, not how I felt to see them with no clothes on.

Perhaps Janice was right, I considered. Perhaps I did have what it took to be a real nurse, but I think I still needed some convincing.

Back on the surgical ward the following week, I was relieved to be given the mundane task of tidying and wiping down lockers, disposing of wilting flowers and filling up water jugs. This gave me the chance to chat to some of the patients.

Mercifully, Mrs Roache was lying in what appeared to be a comfortable slumber, though how she managed it with that enormous splint on her leg I never knew. Mrs Pearlman, however, was wide awake in the next bed.

‘How are you, my dear?’ she asked me kindly. ‘You girls do work so very hard. We’re lucky to have such angels as you to care for us.’

Mrs Pearlman was a wonderful old lady. Well into her seventies, she lived alone after being widowed many years earlier, and had fallen down the stairs of her old miner’s cottage in Hazel Grove. Her pelvis was fractured in several places and she had been in hospital for weeks on end. She never had many visitors and I was amazed at how she remained so positive.