London day

post from dovegreyreader scribbles on 20 November 2008 07:15:00 PM. © dovegreyreader scribbles

London was, well wonderful London, and it's always good to whisk around on the tube and walk the pavements, pretending to be a local, playing at living there again and then head back to Devon.

I used to know exactly where to get on a tube train to then step off at the 'Way Out' sign at the other end but have generally lost the knack, however I did manage it for Russell Square which is my 'best known' tube station. I glanced at those 175 emergency stairs and half-thought of challenging myself as of old, but then realised I'd need oxygen after about thirty or so and resus after about fifty these days and sensibly headed for the lift as usual.

I was on my way to a talk given by the inestimable Elaine Showalter at the Art Worker's Guild in Queen Square. Her subject Dorothy Canfield Fisher, The Home Maker and Susan Glaspell, The Home Wrecker and very good it was too. More when I have properly gathered my thoughts and placed them in the context of current reading, but old hunting grounds always hold that magic allure so I had to wander off along Great Ormond Street just to give the old place my fond regards.

I know quite a few ex God's Own Spot nurses now visit dovegreyreader scribbles, so please forgive us if we have a little nostalge together and for them especially some early evening pictures that reminded me of those dark winter evenings walking across Queen Square to go on night duty. Underneath the cape would be the basket holding the clean starched apron, a novel and the knitting/quilting for the quiet night that I don't think happened once in four years, but also the obligatory textbook which you always left open on the desk to impress Night Sister.

Me being The Hoarder found my 1971 Third Edition of Paediatric Nursing by Duncombe & Weller instantly. I see now that by 1991 it was into its Seventh Edition by which time it was probably time to pension it off and start anew.

Mine seems to have suffered from a surfeit of idle (fountain pen) doodling and still has patient notes tucked inside but heaven help you if Night Sister decided to pick it up and test you. Reading the diagnoses for the children that we were caring for that night on infectious diseases ward Cohen back in 1974, it's no wonder we didn't sit down; Tubercular Meningitis, Meningococcal Meningitis x 2, Post-Pertussis Vaccine Encephalopathy (remember the Whooping Cough vaccine scare?), Herpes Encephalitis, E.Coli Meningitis, TB and Epidermolosis Bullosa. Nor did we catch anything, it wouldn't have crossed our minds, masks, gowns, infection control and hand-washing ad infinitum were all second-nature to us.

I hate to remind anyone who lived here but yer 'tis, Guilford Street Nurses Home where pigeons were known to nest under beds and the entire cockroach population of London would gather to party in the kitchens at night.Then the glowing and glorious old Southwood Building and the sight thatwould greet us we turned the corner to walk up the drive and were wewould be scurrying round for the next twelve hours.