Doncaster Gate Heritage Project - Memories of a Cadet Nurse

1962 - 1965

When, 47 years ago, a 15 year old girl stepped into the pink dress of the uniform of a cadet nurse, it was with the purpose in mind to learn to care for the sick, for is that not what a nurse is all about ? The girl was I, Brenda Harrison embarking on 3 years of Pre- Nursing Studies and Practices, jointly with The Rotherham Hospital and Rotherham College of Technology. By the end of 2 years, I had gained all the experience needed to understand the day-to-day running of all the departments in the hospital. I knew how to arrange an x-ray, a blood test and became familiar with all the request forms necessary for a variety of investigations and I could even develop X ray films. I loved every minute of it and never listened to anyone who said Cadet Nurses were cheap labour. I gleaned an enormous amount of information, and made friends with many members of staff. The following is a list of all the departments represented on the course:-

Kitchen
Sewing Room
X ray
Pathology Laboratory
Pharmacy
Out-Patients Department
Casualty
Physiotherapy
Pharmacy
Medical
records
General Office

I could give a guided tour of all these departments as the geography of the hospital is still so clear in my mind, even the terrifying cellars where old medical records and X-rays were stored with red hot pipes running all round making scary noises and I saw my first of many cockroaches. The skills of individuals in their own fields of expertise and knowledge from the cook in the kitchen, the seamstress in the sewing room to the charge nurse in casualty and the radiographers in X-Ray all left their impressions and I recognised the skills they had achieved.

In the final year I reached the dizzy heights of the "wards," East Ward with Sister Taylor at the helm, Oh did those glass-topped trolleys’ gleam, and as they say, the rest is history.

At the end of my first month, October 1962, I queued with all the other cadets outside General Office, situated to the right of the main entrance and before the door to the doctor's quarters, to receive my pay cheque our salary began at £9.7.1d per month. We all headed for the National Westminster Bank on the corner of Corporation Street and Market Street for this to be cashed. My Mum said I was to give her £2 for my board and lodging, she gave me the money for my dinners on the 3 days a week I attended the Tech. Mum and Dad bought all my books plus stationary. I was to clothe myself with the rest and pay for my dancing class, which cost 2/6 a week and my Girl Guide subs.

People and places within the hospital are still very much evident in my memory, I will attempt to share some of them with you I say some of them; I would need a whole volume to record everything.

I soon learned the discipline, which was expected of me, and methodical skills I learned have carried me through life.

The cleanliness of the hospital was of the highest order, no garish shops in the entrance hall but clean lines, polished tables with displays of fresh flowers and in pride of place a painting of The Rotherham Hospital in c1875 set amidst a rural scene of greenery.

After entrance examinations, references from school and church, interview with Matron Sharp who I thought looked like Queen Victoria complete with lace cap, and a medical with a vaccination for smallpox, and I was on my way to my first department the Kitchen. Situated on the right of the main corridor, just before the entrance to Coop Ward. A whole suite of pantries, an office, a walk in deep freeze, and the kitchen itself with a scullery set back with lots of windows and ventilation.The Kitchen Sister reigned from her office complete in full uniform, with the help of Mrs Bucktrout whose husband I think was charge nurse on Central Ward. We cadet nurses worked together in twos and my chum was Linda Overton. We had fun, yes fun with the potatoes which were magically peeled in a machine which looked like a huge hot water cistern, down from which the potatoes ran along a chute and splash landed in a bath all bobbing about for us to catch and eye! Next job jelly making for the children's ward, not like Mum made with cubes and pretty bowls but in washing up bowls with a powder, which took an age to dissolve.

A serving hatch to the Sisters dining sometimes afforded a glimpse of elegance, with a white starched tablecloth spread onto a very large dining table, set with silver cutlery. Many years later I used this as part of a poem I titled “When Nurses looked like Nurses” it appeared in the Yorkshire magazine Down Your Way. We cadets were endowed with the divine right to take Matron Sharp her lunch on a tray a jacket potato never anything else, young knees would be knocking all the way up to her flat above the kitchen passing the Sisters rooms. Their sitting room was opposite the sewing room and next to Matron Sharp’s office.

However, the best is yet to come, us cadets were the first to go to lunch, supervised and served by Home Sister in the Nurses’ dining room room, which we shared with radiographers, lab staff, pharmacists, and physiotherapists. Afterwards we retired to the nurse's sitting room situated just beyond the dining room. In those days, there was a strict hierarchical pecking order; there was a Sister Beale who I think was Home Sister, she took care of us cadets. A canteen provided for the porters, domestics, and cleaners, was approached from a door, just passed West ward where an open wooden staircase led downwards. After lunch, our first job was to prepare the bread and butter for the patient's afternoon tea, yes, they had bread and jam and cake. This was the best job, into the bread pantry and close the door, Oh the smell of new bread made our mouths water. We operated an electric slicing machine yes at 15 years old, the bread came in long square loaves, after slicing we buttered it and we didn't half lash it on or was it margarine, it tasted good anyway as we filled our stomachs. The sliced bread was neatly placed on numerous plates and the jam in small pots.

Next move to the homely atmosphere of the sewing room thankfully the laundry had recently been declared unfit for us, but I remember the department beneath the kitchen near Princess Mary Ward, when taking in my dirty uniforms and collecting them washed, ironed and neatly folded.

I was familiar with sewing machines from school and had always gained high marks for needlework and dressmaking. I bought a second hand sewing machine for £6 from the Singer shop on Corporation Street it took to take an age to save up the money, but when I had, I was the proud owner of a sewing machine, which had been put by for me. That machine lasted me years and I made curtains for the new house which my husband and I moved into in 1972.

The sewing room was situated to the left of the main entrance and opposite Matron Sharp’s office and it always warm, dry and very cosy. A constant flow of staff kept everyone busy with measurements for new uniforms, or alterations. The linen from the departments and wards was mended and patched. How clever I thought the seamstresses were as they machine embroidered names and numbers onto all manner of articles; but sometimes we had the job of unpicking someone's mistakes probably our own. The women mothered us cadets while teaching us many skills that have stayed with me all these years.

Before I go I must just share something else - when working in Physiotherapy, when Mrs Pashley Superintendent Physiotherapist went to lunch along with her colleagues, we had some fun with the wax bath, dipping our hands into the warm wax after a few minutes it would have set, then we peeled it off again. Also one day we rummaged in Mrs Pashley's cupboard where we knew she kept a tea tray, to our delight there was a packet of club biscuits, we didn't like to take 2 so split one in half, needless to say it was the first of many.

On a more serious note one day in X ray the victim of a terrible road traffic accident at Maltby crossroads was wheeled in on a trolley. A wooden stake had pierced her leg, she told me she was driving from the south of England to a relative in North Yorkshire, this was my first glimpse of severe injury, a test on my nerves and stomach I got through it with the help of a caring radiographer who not only cared for the patient but made sure I did not faint.

Then there was the young butcher's assistant who had his fingers too near the blades in the sausage machine......

I also had my first lesson in confidentiality when our local butcher's wife came into X ray for a barium enema, yes there were more butchers in those days. Forty years later in 2002, I reminisced with the homely women in the sewing room/uniform room at The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh as I returned my uniforms upon my retirement.

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Memories of a Cadet Nurse

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