‘Well, I hope she’s more careful than the last one. She didn’t get me proper situated on the bedpan. Nasty mess there was to clean up afterwards. Still, serves her right. I told her I wasn’t straight and she just ignored me.’
‘Now, open, please, Mrs Miles,’ Nurse Barnes said, slipping the thermometer under the woman’s tongue and taking her wrist.
The thermometer prevented any more complaining, enabling Tilly to concentrate. She watched as Nurse Barnes completed the procedure and filled in the form hanging on a clipboard at the base of the bed. Once the thermometer was removed, however, Mrs Miles proceeded to moan about thefood. If the lunchtime offering was anything to go by, Tilly thought, then she had to agree with her.
‘Her bark is worse than her bite,’ Nurse Barnes whispered as they moved on. ‘Now, Miss Harwood, let’s see how you’re doing, shall we?’ she said to the elderly woman in the next bed.
By the time Fliss came back, they had finished one side of the ward. Fliss joined them and after introducing herself, passed on a message to Nurse Barnes.
‘Sister asked me to tell you she’s sending Nurse Phillips to complete the checks and can you show us how to make a bed, please?’
Nurse Barnes sighed. ‘Right, then, the bed at the end is empty while Mrs Smith goes for her X-ray. We’ll do that one.’
She handed over to Nurse Phillips and they all went to the laundry room to collect fresh sheets.
‘I hope it gets more exciting than this,’ Fliss whispered.
Chapter 3
Ronnie’s first day at Saunders-Roe was much the same in many ways as Tilly’s at the Royal, a lightning tour of rules and expectations. Ronnie received a series of lectures on the way he should conduct himself, safety procedures on the factory floor and introductions to the faces of seniority. He soon realised how far down the pecking order he was and that he was very much on probation. Expectations were high and he was left with no illusions about how many others were ready to step into his shoes if he didn’t come up to scratch. There would be quarterly reviews of his performance and a yearly report from the education department regarding his academic achievements and test results.
‘Theory and practice go hand in hand,’ Mr Farthing said.
Mr Farthing was his mentor and had been working for Saunders-Roe since he left school. He was a tall, thin man with not an ounce of extra fat on him. His handlebar moustache was tinged with yellowish stains betraying a smoking habit and when he opened his hand to shake Ronnie’s, the same tinge revealed itself. The handshake was firm, though, and when he held Ronnie’s gaze and smiled, Ronnie felt that he would be a dependable guide through the complex maze of being a trainee in an important industry.
Ronnie was given a general introduction to the history of the company originally set up by Moses Saunders in 1840 as a family business. He learned that it was the grandson, Samuel Saunders, who had developed the introduction of petrol engines in 1890 and there afterwards a series of milestone events and dates swept in quick succession from Mr Farthing’s lips and failed to lodge in Ronnie’s brain. What he did recall was that Mr Farthing called Samuel ‘a gifted and venturesome young man’and encouraged Ronnie to apply himself to learning as much as he could about the various aspects of the company.
‘For who knows where it might lead? You might even own your own company one day,’ Mr Farthing said.
Ronnie wasn’t so sure about that. Samuel had had the advantage of stepping into his grandfather’s shoes. Ronnie had had no such start in life. His father, Albert Locock, was no businessman — he was a blacksmith. But he was a good man, a skilled man, and Ronnie respected him, but he couldn’t give Ronnie the financial backing that Samuel had had.
‘So, how did the first day go, then?’ asked Dot when Ronnie came through the door looking exhausted. ‘You look a bit bewildered.’
‘There was an awful lot to take in,’ Ronnie replied. ‘I had a tour of the whole site. It’s vast. I didn’t realise how many different aspects there are to boat-building and it’s not just boats — aircraft too, flying boats. The company is expanding. I was taken into this massive shed — the erecting shop it’s called. All under the same roof, there’s the dope and covering shops, sheet-metal department, sewing and metal-wing assembly departments . . .’
Dot glazed over as Ronnie enthused about everything he had learned on his first day. She smiled to herself. It gave her a warm feeling to know that both Tilly and Ronnie were committed to their chosen careers.
* * *
Down in Ryde, Tilly was gaining more experience of what it meant to be a nurse. She was settling into the daily routines and finding that she and Fliss got on very well together. They were like flip sides of a coin. Tilly was adept at her studies and keeping Fliss on the straight and narrow, and Fliss brought the laughter and sunshine into their friendship. She didn’t take lifetoo seriously. Her ability to find the humour in any situation was refreshing to Tilly. Being brought up in a home with two teachers did mean that there was a certain earnestness about getting down to the hard work of studying.
As the weeks passed, Tilly was moved around from ward to ward so that she could be introduced to the vagaries of each section of the hospital, all of which had their own peculiarities and seemed to attract a certain kind of individual. Tilly thought of it more as a trial by fire. She began striking each experience off as being ‘interesting’ but not quite what she’d expected. She was keen to identify the particular aspect of nursing that suited her. Fliss, on the other hand, saw things differently. ‘I just want to get through the training to satisfy my mother. Then I can concentrate on finding a man who will support me.’ Fliss often joked about her lack of a sense of vocation, but Tilly suspected that, secretly, Fliss was a little bit lost. She didn’t have the closeness with her family that Tilly felt with hers. Despite being a family that was split up geographically, emotionally they were very much together and supported each other. The need to please them, and have them be proud of her and her achievements, was strong.
Tilly hoped that, in due, course, there would be an aspect of the training that she would eventually feel comfortable with and kept an open mind. There were some of the trainees who enthused about maternity and just loved bringing babies into the world. Others saw themselves as being destined to be a nurse in recovery, helping with post-operative patients, but she just didn’t know. She waited for the moment when she would realise that an aspect of nursing was for her. Fliss, on the other hand, didn’t care. She saw it as a phase in her life that she just had to get through, as if she was in a waiting room, biding her time until her true vocation in life presented itself in the form of a husband with the required amount of income to support her.Tilly berated her for having set her sights so low in life and tried to convince her of the mistake she was making not seeking a more independent path.
As far as Tilly was concerned, it was a waste of a woman’s talents and abilities to cast herself in the role of wife and mother and not seek any further fulfilment. They seemed poles apart in their outlook on life, but somehow Tilly really enjoyed Fliss’s company. She was fun and her devil-may-care attitude was a tonic after the seriousness of the day-to-day work on the wards. If she had to rely on someone to get her through a difficult time, then it would be Fliss.
Tilly had been working hard at her studies as well as gaining practical experience on the wards and she needed some relaxation. She decided to put the idea to Fliss and see what she could come up with. There was very little in the way of entertainment and relaxation in Ryde, but if there was anything out there Fliss would find it. Tilly could learn something from Fliss about how to enjoy herself, she thought, and she could also learn something about men, which Fliss seemed to see as her specialist subject.
The attractive doctor she had noticed on the wards recently did distract Tilly from her tasks sometimes and she wondered if Fliss, with all her experience of the opposite sex, might give her some clues about how to attract his attention. She began daydreaming about bumping into him in the corridor, spilling items off her bed-bath trolley and he helping her pick them up. Their eyes would meet and he would instantly fall in love . . . She stopped herself.What are you doing, Tilly?That sounds like the worst women’s magazine story ever. She didn’t believe in love at first sight. She must be starved of male company if she was resorting to such idiotic ideas. Time to do something about it. She would get Fliss on the case of the search for male companions at the first opportunity. It wasn’t that she wasdesperate to find a boyfriend, but she wasn’t averse to a little romantic adventure either.All work and no play, and all that, she thought.Time for a little fun.
‘Are you listening to me?’ Deirdre Miles, her duty companion said.
‘What? Did you say something?’ Tilly mumbled.
‘I said, pull the under sheet tighter,’ Deirdre repeated. ‘You know what a stickler Sister is for properly made beds.’
‘Sorry. I’ve got things on my mind,’ Tilly said, not wishing to disclose what it was that was distracting her. A young doctor had been accompanying Mr James, the consultant gynaecologist, on his rounds for the past few weeks. He was the reason for her not being entirely focused on her work.
