by Annie Groves
Many thanks to the redoubtable Teresa Chris, and for the invaluable encouragement and support from editor Kate Bradley and copy editor Pen Isaac. Also to the staff of the Queen’s Nursing Institute, especially Matthew Bradby and Christine Widdowson.
June 1939
‘Are you sure this is the right way?’ asked Edith, putting her hand to her head as the early summer breeze threatened to blow her nurse’s hat into the dusty road. ‘Wasn’t it meant to be five minutes from the bus stop? I bet we’ve walked for longer than that. My feet are killing me.’
Alice checked the piece of paper again. ‘I can’t see where we could have gone wrong. Anyway, Edie, we haven’t been walking for more than a few minutes. Don’t take on so.’ She looked down at her colleague with good humour – Edith barely reached her shoulder. ‘Let’s go to the next corner and see if we can spot it from there. If we see anyone we can ask.’
Edith grimaced but, left with little choice, gamely picked up her case once more and followed Alice, whose longer stride meant she was always slightly ahead. In her other hand she carried her precious nurse’s bag. The rows of terraced houses they passed all looked the same, three storeys high if you counted the big basements, with bay windows and steep stone steps, but narrow-fronted, built to fit a lot of people into a small space. They didn’t have much in the way of front gardens, just an area where you could leave dustbins or reach the basement door. Still, Edith told herself, it wasn’t as grim as the street she had grown up in, on the other side of the river in south London. This was bright in comparison. It wouldn’t be too bad at all.
Alice came to a sudden halt and Edith nearly smacked into her. The taller young woman pointed at a street sign. ‘There we are. Victory Walk.’
Edith looked up, pushing one of her stray dark curls out of her eyes. Try as she might they would never do as she wanted, and she’d been in trouble with her previous matron because of that – and for numerous other reasons as well. ‘So it is. Victory Walk. Suppose it was named after we won the Great War, though I bet the houses were built ages before that. Are we at this end?’
Alice looked at the houses on the corners. ‘No, I don’t think so. They said it was a bigger house and we’d know it straight away. Must be further along.’
Edith groaned as her shoulder protested at the weight of her case.
Alice smiled in sympathy. ‘Buck up, Edie. Not far now.’
‘Easy for you to say, with your long legs,’ Edith grumbled, but picked up her case once more. ‘I’m sure it’s further than five minutes …’
‘It won’t be. Not when we aren’t carrying these great lumbering things,’ Alice pointed out. ‘We’ll be on and off those buses in a jiffy. You can get to the West End as quickly as you like on your days off.’ She paused as they got to the other end of the short road. ‘Here we are. They were right, there’s no mistaking it.’
Both young women set down their cases and nurses’ bags and stood to take in the first sight of what would be their new home, and also the base for their work. It was in the style of the rest of the street but felt grander, being double-fronted, standing a little taller than the buildings around it, and there were attic windows too. The sign above the immaculate front door left no room for doubt that they’d found what they were looking for: ‘North Hackney Queen’s Nurses Association’. This was why they’d taken the bus to the east side of the city, and then up Kingsland Road, with its busy mix of shops, cafés, factories and cinemas. This is where they would live for the foreseeable future and from where they would go out into the local community as district nurses. Alice found she was tracing with her forefinger the shape of the Queen’s Nurse badge that she wore on a cord around her neck.
For a moment her nerve failed her. Would she be good enough? Would she live up to the trust of her tutors and the expectations of her patients? She’d trained for years, first as a general nurse in a hospital, then on the specialist course to become a district nurse, but there had always been someone else there to guide her. Now she would be out there, on the district as it was called, on her own, in her patients’ houses rather than on wards, relying on her own skill and judgement to cope with whatever was thrown at her. Would she be able to do it?
Edith, who often relied on her friend to take the lead, now stepped forward. ‘Come on then. Let’s see what this place is like on the inside. Hope we get rooms on the top storey.’ She glanced up at Alice. ‘We’ll be all right, just you see.’
‘Of course we will.’ Alice gave herself a mental shake. ‘They wouldn’t have passed us otherwise.’ And with that she picked up her heavy case for what she hoped would be the last time for a very long while, strode up the steps and rapped sharply on the glossy navy paint of the door.
The difference between the bright daylight and the gloom of the corridor made them blink, and Alice at first almost didn’t see the young woman who let them in. She swiftly led them down the dim hallway and up a set of stairs, turning and opening a door, with a shy murmur of ‘she’s been expecting you’, before vanishing again. Sunshine flooded in through a large window, falling on a sturdy but well-worn wooden desk covered in cardboard folders, with an equally solid-looking wooden bookcase behind it. Alice had just enough time to notice the familiar spines of textbooks she had studied when a student nurse before a bustling woman in uniform shot across from the far corner of the room and started speaking at top speed. Her hair was red as copper, her face was sprinkled with freckles and she was even shorter than Edith. Alice had the distinct impression that here was somebody who hardly ever sat still – keen energy radiated from her as she waved them inside the office.
‘Come in, come in. Make yourselves comfortable. Nurses Lake and Gillespie, I take it?’ She looked at them brightly.
‘Y-yes,’ Alice stuttered, momentarily taken aback by the woman’s strong Scottish accent. ‘I’m Alice Lake.’
‘Then you must be Edith Gillespie,’ the woman said, sounding delighted as she took them across to the slightly faded sofa on the far side of the room. ‘I’m Fiona Dewar, and I’ll be your superintendent. Sit, sit and take the weight off your feet, there’ll be time enough for standing very shortly. Take every opportunity for a nice sit-down in this business, that’s what I say, because who knows when you’ll get another chance? You’ll be rushing around soon enough, I’ll be bound.’ She took her seat behind the desk and pulled one of the folders towards her. ‘Gladys will bring us a cup of tea, that’s the young lady who let you in. She doesn’t say much to start with but you’ll get to know her all the same, I’m sure. So, now, your previous matron has said some very impressive things about you, Miss Lake.’ She turned a page in the file. ‘Most promising. You weren’t inclined to go back to your home town, then?’ She looked up and, although her grey eyes were kind, Alice realised they missed nothing.
Hastily she cleared her throat. ‘No, I did my specialist training in London and I grew to like it. Besides, it means I can work with Edith, we work well as a team.’ She smiled at the superintendent, hoping there would be no further questions in this delicate area. She had no intention of revealing her real reason for staying away from Liverpool. That was her own private business, and it would stay that way if she had anything to do with it.
Edith beamed and the superintendent turned her gaze towards her. ‘Ah yes, Miss Gillespie, it’s always good to have a friend to hand, especially when you’re in a responsible profession like nursing.’
Alice