her not to turn down any of the new recruits so that they could meet the Government’s demands, Connie would have been shown the door without any further ado.
However, the ears of the British Government had already caught the first threatening rumble of war, lying menacingly in the distance like thunder, and had started to prepare for it. More soldiers would be needed and more nurses to mend their wounds. Decisions were made and orders given.
Matron’s bosom had heaved, as she had drawn herself up to her full height, and reminded him, ‘Sir, this hospital has always put the thorough and excellent training of its nurses above their number. Quality before quantity has been our motto, which is why we have never, as some other Poor Hospital’s have done, taken onto our wards untrained girls from the poorhouse itself.’
‘Matron, it is because of your excellent reputation for training young women to become firstrate nurses, that we have been given this task of recruiting and training more.’ Mr Cleaver had informed her. ‘It is because our Government wants the very best of nurses to care for our wounded soldiers – should there be a war, our wounded heroes,’ he had emphasised, ‘that we are required to train more.’
There had been several more very flattering remarks of this nature made to her by Mr Cleaver, and, eventually Matron had acknowledged that if the Government were in need of more nurses, then no hospital in the entire length and breadth of the country, was more equipped to train them to the highest of standards than the West Derby Union Infirmary.
And possibly no Matron! Because the Infirmary was no ordinary poorhouse hospital! Thanks to the foresight of one of its Guardians, its nursing practices and training methods had been recommended by no less personage than Florence Nightingale herself.
Matron was justly proud of that reputation, and she looked upon it as almost her sacred duty to maintain it. Her experienced gaze assessed and judged the freshly scrubbed faces in front of her.
Connie looked right back at her defiantly, ignoring the sharp tug the girl standing next to her gave her gown.
They had been waiting for nearly half an hour for the Matron to see them to assess their suitability, and Connie had learned that the calm steady-eyed, brown-haired young woman tugging her gown was Mavis, and that she had wanted to be a nurse all her life; and the anxious-looking redhead with the freckled nose and gangly body was Josie, whose stepmother had no longer wanted her at home. The blonde girl with her cheeky grin and upturned nose was Vera Harper, and Connie had already recognised that she and Vera were kindred spirits. In no time at all, they had been chattering happily together.
‘So you all wish to train as nurses! Well, make no mistake it is very demanding work and not for the work-shy or feckless.’
She paused and gave Connie a very long, cold look.
‘No matter how humble your position, and how elevated my own, no error on your part will escape my notice.’
Josie made a small anxious sound, and Connie gave her a withering look.
‘Do you have a problem with your eyesight, Miss?’ the Matron asked Connie coldly. ‘When I
am speaking to you, your gaze, in fact the whole of your attention, should be on me and not wandering around the room.’
Connie fought back the blush she could feel wanting to burn her face. The teachers at the Park School in Preston had sometimes been strict, but nothing like this, and she wasn’t a schoolgirl any more, she was … Connie tensed, as she remembered just what she was, and why she was here.
‘You will be working a probationary period, after which your suitability to continue your training will be assessed.’
Matron had two strict rules, neither of which she ever allowed to be broken! The first was that her wards were, at all times, kept in a state of total cleanliness and the second, that her nurses were, at all times, kept in a state of total obedience. Occasionally, as now, there were situations when the two rules married admirably together.
‘One of my nurses will come and escort you to a bathroom where you will wash and then present yourselves for inspection.’
Not even her imposing presence could check the murmur of apprehension that ran round the room. One girl put up her hand ‘Please, ma’am, does that mean we will have to take off our clothes?’
Matron pursed her lips. Of course, it was a good sign that a young woman should be modest, but as Matron had good cause to know, some of the girls who came to her for training were from the poorest families. Their clothes were removed from them and washed in the hospital laundry; every inch of their skin was scrubbed clean, and every hair on their head checked to make sure they were not bringing any kind of infestation into the hospital with them. Matron was as relentless, as she was tireless, in her war against dirt and its potential to carry disease.
Sternly she looked at the girl. ‘Of course it does. How else would you take a bath? This is a hospital,’ she reminded them, ‘and within it you will see certain sights that would not normally be witnessed by an unmarried woman. But you will not be women – you will be nurses!’
‘I won’t do it. I’m not letting anyone see me without my clothes,’ one of the girls announced, pink-cheeked.
Matron had left in a crackle of starched dress and apron, and Connie listened, waiting to voice her own refusal, when Mavis said quietly, ‘It is simply a necessary precaution, and nothing to be feared.’
Feared? Who was afraid! Certainly not her, Connie decided!
And it seemed later, when they all huddled together after undergoing their examination at the hands of a stern-faced Sister, that none of the others had been either.
‘I felt a right Charlie,’ one of the girls announced. ‘A proper telling off I got for droppin’ me drawers straight off, instead of waiting behind the screen for Sister to call for me!’ ‘Urgh, she had such cold hands,’ one of the other girls laughed, and within seconds they were all chattering and giggling, trying to outdo one another as they described their embarrassment.
‘So why did you decide to become a nurse, Connie?’ Vera asked her.
For a moment Connie froze, feeling trapped. How could she tell them the truth? They would shut her out if she did. This was meant to be a fresh start for her.
She took a deep breath. She didn’t want to lie to them but she knew that she had no alternative.
‘Oh, it was a bit the same for me as it was for Josie,’ she announced, as carelessly as she could. ‘I was living in Preston with my father and my stepmother, but my stepmother didn’t want me around. She’d got a couple of little ones of her own, and I heard they were wanting to train up nurses here.’
As she spoke, instead of feeling guilty, Connie felt as though a weight had fallen off her shoulders; as though suddenly she was the young woman she was describing; and as though Kieron, and all the horror she now associated with him, had never been. Her active imagination was already making her the girl she was claiming to be: Connie Pride, whose unkind stepmother had forced her to leave her home and fend for herself. And, after all, it wasn’t completely untrue!
Connie felt her spirits lift, laughing and giggling along with the others.
‘What is going on? Stop this noise this instant!’
The stern voice of the woman approaching them, shocked them all into silence.
‘I am Sister Jenkins,’ she told them. ‘Come with me, please.’
She led them down into a tunnel, which connected the hospital to the nurses’ home on the other side of the road. Once there, they were all handed a bundle which included their uniform, the cost of which, they learned, would be deducted from their wages. Clutching these bundles, they were then taken to the dormitory-like rooms where they would be sleeping.
‘I am in charge of the nurses’ home,’ Sister Jenkins told them, ‘and if I have any complaints about you, they will be referred to Matron. Let me warn you now, that Matron does not