Our Country Nurse: Can East End Nurse Sarah find a new life caring for babies in the country?

HarperElement

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London SE1 9GF

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First published by HarperElement 2016

FIRST EDITION

© Sarah Beeson MBE and Amy Beeson 2016

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover photograph © Stephen Mulcahey

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

Sarah Beeson MBE and Amy Beeson assert the moral

right to be identified as the authors of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007520091

Ebook Edition © August 2016 ISBN: 9780007520107

Version: 2016-08-01

Dedication

In memory of the late

May Paulus, Desiree Knox Whyte and Pat Wrennall:

wonderful health visitors, mentors and friends

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

About Sarah Beeson

About Amy Beeson

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

Acknowledgements

Also by Sarah Beeson

Moving Memoirs eNewsletter

About the Publisher

About Sarah Beeson

In 1969 17-year-old Sarah Beeson – then Sarah Hill – arrived in Hackney in the East End of London to begin her nursing career. Six years later she went into health visiting, practising for over 35 years in Kent and Staffordshire, building up a lifetime’s expertise and stories through working with babies and families.

In 1998 Sarah received the Queen’s Institute for Nursing Award. In 2006 she was awarded an MBE for Services to Children and Families by Queen Elizabeth II.

She later married and became Sarah Beeson. Now she divides her time between Staffordshire and London.

About Amy Beeson

Amy Beeson spent her childhood in rural Staffordshire. She is a writer of fiction and non-fiction, a scriptwriter and copywriter, and runs Wordsby, a branding and communications business. Amy studied English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, followed by an MA in Writing and Performance for Theatre, Film and Television at the University of York. She has won prizes for poetry, has had several plays performed and was a young playwright at the Birmingham Rep where she met her husband, writer Takbir Uddin. They now live in London with their daughter, Ava.

1

The early autumn sun made my eyelids flutter as my brand new green Mini sped round a sharp bend at which was yet another signpost promising that the village of Totley lay a short distance ahead of me. It seemed complicit with every twist and turn of the Kent countryside to keep the hilltop village from my eagerly searching eyes. It teased me, revealing woods, then a flash of a farm at the end of a long muddy road, and the odd white weather-boarded cottage tucked away in the brambles at the edge of a copse. I was starting to feel like the place I was searching for didn’t really exist; adding to my apprehension that the whole thing was a misunderstanding and when I arrived they’d tell me there had been an error and I hadn’t got the job at all. After all who’d want a twenty-something health visitor straight out of training?

The road was never straight for more than a minute. I’d driven all the way from my parents’ new townhouse in Staffordshire and I was desperate to be in my first home – just me, no brothers and sisters or flatmates – just me for the very first time in my life. To my great relief the raw countryside eventually gave way to high wooden gates that exposed only the numerous chimneys belonging to the big houses of the county set. And at long last a sign which read ‘Welcome to Totley’. I sighed; it was beautiful and quiet and so different from the streets of Hackney – it was like arriving in another world, as my eyes delighted in the beautiful stone walls nestling cottages with bow windows and front doors separated from the pavement by only narrow porches. I felt my spirits lift and drummed along to the beat of ‘Higher and Higher’ by Jackie Wilson on the car radio.

The steeple of St Agatha’s Church peeked out almost reticently from behind aged yew trees. As I cruised past the church a cacophony of bells rang out proudly from the belfry giving my arrival in the village a dreamlike feel. The heavy oak doors opened and wedding guests poured into the churchyard, idly nestling amongst the neglected gravestones having a quick solitary smoke or chatting in clusters of acquaintances. I looked on and smiled as the bride and groom surrounded by their closest family and friends were photographed by a man in a grey flannel suit with long sandy hair, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he forced elderly aunts in floral A-line dresses elbow to elbow with young groomsmen in stripy ill-fitting suits with yellow carnations in their buttonholes. The bride was radiant in a wide-brimmed floppy white hat and an empire-line scooped neck gown. Her dress billowed out in the breeze as she tightly held onto a small bouquet of indistinguishable pink flowers. Her bridesmaids enthusiastically tossed confetti over the happy couple, their shallow long-handled wicker baskets hung over their arms like handbags filled with yellow carnations.

I came to a crossroads and glanced down at the directions I’d scribbled when the superintendent health visitor telephoned to offer me the job:

Ivy Cottage Clinic, Main Road.

Ask Mrs Florence Farthing for keys. Next door at Primrose Cottage.

Main Road appeared to be the road I was on. I continued ahead and found myself in the epicentre of Totley. A row of cream cottages with brightly painted front doors faced the Village Hall and Totley Garage amongst a parade of small shops and businesses. A pair of black boots stuck out from under a Rover at the garage and multi-coloured bunting fluttered in the wind at the Village Hall, which was no doubt the venue for the wedding reception. I pulled up on the street outside the pale-blue door of Ivy Cottage at the end of the terrace. A shiny plaque told me unmistakably that it was ‘Totley Clinic’ – I was finally home.

I turned off the engine and jumped out of my newly acquired Mini, issued to me by ‘the County’ as one of the perks of the job. I’d stuffed my little car to the gunnels with the bric-à-brac and kitchenware I’d acquired during my time as a nurse in a shared flat on Balls Pond Road in London’s East End; it was tilting precariously to one side. I was rather looking forward to having my own kitchen and not having to do someone else’s washing-up before I could start preparing my own meal. I frowned at my school trunk which had been inexpertly strapped to the roof of my Mini by my younger brother Stephen – it was looking more dilapidated than ever. My initials ‘SH’ were very faded and scratched – maybe this wasn’t the best first impression to give the village of their new health visitor. You must try and look older and more respectable, I scolded myself, now regretting wearing a pair of denim shorts and a white peasant blouse with delicately embroidered blue flowers to drive down in, but it was such a warm day.

Suddenly, I was worried about my appearance and took my compact out from my large brown leather handbag and inspected my face. I cleaned my black-rimmed glasses with a tissue and popped them back primly on the end of my pale-skinned nose. I bit my lips and pinched my cheeks to give myself a hint of colour and rapidly ran my fingers through my tangle of long dark hair. Futilely I attempted to pull at the edges of my shorts towards my bare knees and cast a withering look at my raffia platform sandals looking mockingly up at me.

Taking a deep breath I knocked on the bright-yellow door of Mrs Farthing at Primrose Cottage. There was no answer. I tried again and waited a few minutes but nothing. I tried my own front door but it was locked. I could feel panic rising within me – what if there really had been a mistake and no one was expecting me at all?

My anxiety was broken by the sound of a squeak and a clanging of metal, shortly followed by the appearance of an old man with a crinkled tanned face and salt and pepper hair making his wobbly way down the street on a boneshaker of a bicycle. He was whistling to himself, completely unperturbed by the inharmonious clatter and whining of his transportation. He was balancing metal buckets on each side of the handlebars and a ladder was resting lengthways across his lap. When he saw me dawdling on the pavement outside the row of cottages his face lit up and crumpled even further at the eyes and mouth.

‘Hello there, Nurse,’ he called cheerily. ‘She’ll be out the back. We couldn’t stand waiting indoors, not on such a beauty of a day.’

I smiled but didn’t know what to say. Was this Mr Farthing?

He hopped nimbly off his bicycle and opened the door to the side passage. ‘Follow me, Nurse,’ he instructed as he took the metal buckets filled with chicken feed with him down the narrow dark tunnel. Obediently I followed. As he emerged ahead of me into the sunlight he called, ‘Flo, the Nurse is here. She’s arrived!’

Flo Farthing had the same tanned skin as her husband, her greying dark hair swept neatly up into a bun. She was deftly picking tomatoes from a vine, standing completely at ease in a garden filled with bed upon bed of flowers, fruit and vegetables. It’s like Mr McGregor’s garden, I thought pleasantly – any minute now I will see a fat little brown rabbit popping out from a watering can. There were mature fruit trees at the back and I was sure there was a goat grazing on a stretch of pasture that ran along the end of the lane. Mrs Farthing was neat as a new pin and wore a white fitted knee-length shirt dress with green leaves and vines on it. She was diminutive and comfortingly plump, her arms and legs muscular and bronzed from a life lived outdoors. When she saw me her face lit up and she hurried towards us, hens half-flapping away at her feet, eager to get to the metal buckets of feed Mr Farthing was carrying.

I stretched out my hand and introduced myself, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Farthing. I’m Sarah Hill, the new health visitor.’

‘Well, I’m very pleased to meet you, Nurse,’ she gushed. ‘But we’ll have none of this Mr and Mrs Farthing business. I’m Flo and he’s Clem. You follow me – I’ll take you up to the flat and get the kettle on. As you know, Clem and I are the caretakers for the clinic. I keep it spick and span and look after you ladies, and Clem does any odd jobs that need doing. We’ve given your flat a good set-to this morning, haven’t we, Clem?’

Clem nodded in accordance with his wife and tossed a handful of feed to the clucking hens. ‘I’m going to check on Bessie.’

I looked enquiringly. ‘The pig,’ explained Flo. ‘An Essex we got from Joe Rudcliff at Treetops Farm for fattening. And right soft Clem is about it too. Calls it Queen Bess for crying out loud.’ Clem said nothing and hurried away to the pig sty at the back of their cottage garden. ‘You mark my words, Clement Farthing, come Easter that porker will do very nicely indeed.’ Flo’s words disappeared on the cool early autumn breeze. She rearranged her face from scolding to motherly and said encouragingly, ‘Follow me, dear. We’ll pop in through the back gate.’

‘You have a beautiful garden,’ I said admiringly.

She beamed with pride. ‘We’ve been here over 40 years. Since the day we were married.’

Flo expertly picked her way through poultry, garden produce and tools to the back lane, where the goat was thoughtfully chewing on someone else’s washing line. I thought of all my belongings left unattended on the street and felt uneasy. It seemed funny to be going in through the back door.

‘I think I better go back to my car and get the boxes to carry up to the flat first,’ I suggested weakly.

‘No need for that. Clem will do it. You don’t need to lift a finger. Give me your car keys, Nurse.’

I reluctantly pulled out my precious keys from the pocket of my denim shorts. ‘CLEM-eennntt,’ called Flo loudly. Clem popped his head up over the garden fence. Flo chucked the keys at him without saying a word and he gave a little half-salute and scuttled off to do her bidding.

A few yards down the lane was a tatty-looking gate that stood between two enormous blackberry bushes, with a rusty catch on it. Flo struggled to open the rusty catch and gave the gate a good kick; in response it opened with a shrill squeak.

‘I’ll get Clem to oil that tonight,’ she said more to herself than to me. ‘This is the garden. You go into the clinic through the front door of the cottage. You see there’s a side passage next to that little car park – well, that’ll bring you from the street right to your garden. The stairs are at the back to give you a little bit of privacy.’

She tutted as we walked down the long narrow plot, past the ancient apple, pear and cherry trees, neglected vegetable patches and an abandoned greenhouse. I looked at my garden longingly. It had so much potential. This was good earth. I could save a fortune if I got it going again.

‘I hope you don’t think Clem and I have been neglecting our duties,’ whispered Flo. ‘Only Nurse Hunter, who was the old district nurse who lived in the cottage until three months back, wouldn’t touch the garden. Wouldn’t let us lend a hand neither. She let it go to wrack and ruin. It’s criminal.’

‘Oh, dear. I like gardening. Perhaps you and Clem could help me restore it to its former glory, if it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Would you like that, Nurse?’ I nodded enthusiastically. ‘It would be an absolute pleasure. I’ve got a good feeling about you,’ she whispered conspiratorially, nudging me gently in the ribs.

‘Didn’t the new district nurse want the cottage?’ I asked as Flo rummaged in her pockets for the keys.

‘Oh, that one. She’s not much older than you and she likes a good time. No, Nurse Bates didn’t want to be in Totley. She turned down Ivy Cottage and opted for the bright lights of Maidstone. Wants to be near all them discotheques and swanky restaurants if you ask me.’

I quite liked the sound of Nurse Bates already. I was only in my mid-twenties; maybe I should have opted for nightlife over country life too. I’d been so thrilled to be offered the job and the flat that I hadn’t really thought about how much I was giving up by moving to the sticks. Oh well, too late now, I said to myself. And I really was quite excited about my garden. I’d done plenty of going out during my Hackney days – it was time to be grown-up off-duty as well as on, I resolved.

‘If you don’t mind me saying, Nurse, you’re the youngest health visitor I’ve seen – by a long way.’

I smiled. I didn’t say actually the youngest in the country by all accounts.

Flo produced the keys and held them up to my face. ‘Want to open the door to your new home?’ she asked with a twinkle in her grey eyes. I eagerly took them off her and rattled the heavy old key in the archaic lock. Flo ceremoniously pushed open the pale-blue door with a flourish and stepped back to let me cross the threshold to my new home.

I ran up the narrow staircase, my hand running up the wooden bannisters newly painted in creamy yellow. They led straight into the kitchen and living area. It was large and bright with a window seat overlooking Main Road. It was, as Flo had said, spick and span, though a little old fashioned with frilly floral curtain covered cupboards and a beautiful old butler sink sparklingly clean. Two faded chintz armchairs were arranged neatly opposite a matching sofa and a pale-blue Formica table stood in the kitchen surrounded by bright-yellow dining chairs. On it was a box of fruit and vegetables, some milk, eggs, a loaf of bread, a packet of tea and a fruit cake next to a little vase of roses.

‘Did you get these for me, Flo?’ I asked, looking through the box of goodies.

‘It’s a little something to get you started,’ she clucked.

‘Thank you so much, that’s incredibly kind. Let me give you some money for it,’ I insisted, reaching for my purse. I was grateful for their kindness and generosity and they didn’t even know me.

‘Put your money away, Nurse. It’s all from our garden anyway and I made the bread and the cake as today’s one of my baking days, and the milk is from the cow I keep at my sister’s. So, it didn’t cost nothing.’ Flo quickly changed the subject. ‘There’s a double bedroom at the back overlooking the garden,’ she continued with the guided tour. ‘The bathroom is through there and you’ll find a little storage cupboard with a hoover and brushes in it at the end of the corridor.’

‘It’s lovely,’ I enthused as I peeked out of the window onto the street below. Flo perched next to me on the window seat. The wedding party was now strewn around the lawn of the Village Hall. There were children running around, men drinking beer and women in floppy hats sipping wine in the sunshine. The bride and groom were greeting people as they walked past them into the hall.

‘I’ll have to pop over to the church soon and help the vicar tidy up – he’s not married yet, bless him and he doesn’t know a cornflower from a poppy,’ Flo told me.

‘I hope you didn’t miss the wedding on my account?’ I asked.

‘No, wasn’t invited,’ she sniffed sharply. ‘His family’s no better than they ought to be. Him, his brothers, his dad and his uncles all work up at the brewery and I would think they drink as much as they brew; no wonder the old place is on its way out. And she’s not been in the village five minutes and her family very much keeps themselves to themselves. They’re not even from Kent! Came from some town in Essex by all accounts. And you don’t have to be a nurse to see you’ll be visiting that girl sooner rather than later,’ remarked Flo with a knowing nod.

I can’t say I was salivating with the imparting of so much village gossip. I felt another short pang for city life and the anonymity of it all. Totley had looked idyllic as I drove through, but clearly life was going to be rather more sedate from now on. I sighed to myself.

The bride and groom eventually disappeared into the Village Hall after greeting the last of their guests. Flo left me to explore the rest of the flat on my own. I could hear the singing of the kettle as she prepared a little tea party to celebrate my arrival. I heard heavy footsteps running up the stairs. When I returned to the kitchen Clem was panting with his hands on his old knees as he tried to catch his breath.

‘Clem, where’s the nurse’s belongings? What have you been doing, you old fool?’ scolded Flo.

‘Come quick, Nurse. Village Hall. The bride – she’s not well,’ puffed Clem.

I’d barely been there half an hour and was already summoned to my first medical emergency. Was this what life as a village health visitor was going to be like? I thought it would be dull compared with hospital life. How wrong I was and how glad I was to be given the wrong first impression of Totley.

Clem led me at a gallop across the street to the Village Hall. The groom and his mates had already opened a huge barrel of scrumpy and were freely pouring it into tankards from the makeshift bar. Young girls danced around their handbags in the small square of dance floor. The speakers pumped out KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘Get Down Tonight’. It wasn’t even five o’clock but the tranquil scene of a quiet country wedding had been transformed into a rowdy gathering of half-cut young locals. At this stage in the proceedings the youthful wedding guests were still divided into male and female, while the older crowd looked on from the sidelines – safe from speculation and free to observe in a straight row of chairs against the walls of the hall. They sat either still, their knees together sipping sherry in between tuts and the sucking in of teeth, or attempted to lounge on the uncomfortable-looking red plastic chairs while watching the heady scene wistfully, wishing they could join in with the youngsters.

Flo was hot on our heels. When we reached the back of the hall Clem stopped abruptly at the side door.

‘We’ll take it from here, Clem,’ Flo instructed, stepping forward and relieving him of duty.

As soon as he was given a reprieve Clem scurried off back to his garden and Bessie his beloved pig. I wished I could go with him.

‘What is the medical emergency?’ I asked Flo under my breath.

‘I would have thought that was obvious. She’s having a baby.’

‘Who?’

‘The bride.’

‘Have you called the midwife?’

‘Yes, but she’s in Malling, it’ll take her at least half an hour to get here.’

Oh help, I thought. I’m not a midwife, I’m a health visitor and only just. Every baby I’ve delivered was during my obstetrics training in a hospital! I took a deep breath – I needed to take charge of the situation. This was nothing I couldn’t handle. Pull yourself together, Sarah, I scolded myself. How far on can the girl be? First babies take hours and she’s probably in first-stage labour or maybe even a false alarm brought on by the excitement of the wedding. Don’t let your nerves get the better of you.

‘Right, I’ll take it from here,’ I told Flo. ‘Well done for calling the midwife but can you call an ambulance too. We don’t want any surprises, do we?’

‘Just as you say, Nurse. Give me a whistle if you need anything. I’ve got the keys to the clinic. I can pop in and get whatever you want until the midwife or the ambulance get here.’

‘Some surgical rubber gloves and towels would be good for a start. Do you know what a foetal stethoscope is?’

‘I certainly do,’ Flo replied a little curtly.

‘Excellent, well one of those too if you would,’ I said with a broad smile. Flo was pacified.

‘Righto, Nurse,’ she replied, hurrying back to the clinic, glad to be of use and in the thick of it.

When I opened the door to the small cramped side room I did not find what I had been expecting; I’d imagined a slightly pink-faced bride pacing around with early labour pains. No, instead I found a frightened young woman with her dress half off, squatting between two red plastic chairs, using the seats as arm supports. An even younger bridesmaid still in her fresh buttercup gown looked pale-faced as she watched from behind the panting newlywed, whose previously neat bridal hair-do was now a tangled mess around her hot red face, her make-up smudged around her overly bright eyes.