It was all so different back in the 1970s when I was a student nurse. The hospital I worked in always seemed busy and full of life. It was packed with us student nurses and not a hospital administrator or any office staff in sight. We all lived in the nurses home at the side of the hospital which had five floors. We shared bathrooms and toilets and there was one kitchen and one laundry room on each floor. I loved my little room, it overlooked the park and was lovely and quiet. I had posters of Snoopy, Clint Eastwood and Freddie Mercury all over the walls which I had bought at the local Woolworths. My Mum had bought me a wonderful retro bedcover and matching curtains and I thought it looked so modern. I never bothered cooking really as we had a big canteen that always had music playing and a choice of really cheap meals. The best part for us was the enormous sitting room. It stretched right down the entire side of the ground floor and had French doors all down the side to the garden and swimming pool at the side. The noise at break times in the sitting room would be deafening with everyone laughing and joking and the air would be thick with cigarette smoke but that didn't seem to matter in those days. I can see us still all perched on the sides of each others chairs just laughing. Once a month there would be a big disco put on by the hospital for us we could invite guests and a DJ played all the hits from the time until the early hours. I can't hear those old 1970s songs without being transported back to that room.
At Christmas the doctors took over the Out Patients department and put on a Christmas Revue which it seemed like, the entire hospital attended. There would be songs, in jokes and the House Officers made digs about senior doctors they didn't like. They got away with murder for a day and everyone would be laughing about for weeks. We all supported each other and no matter how busy or stressful a day was it would end in laughter. Sometimes I think a lot of the problems now with stress among the staff in the NHS is not because the work is that much worse but the support network has gone. The fun and laughter seems to have definitely gone. There was never a time when my old hospital felt as lifeless as this weekend visiting my Dad.
My big regret is that I have no photos of all the rooms which have given me such happy memories. We just didn't take photos like that in those days. In a pile of discarded photos I bought recently for my lovely collection of old photos I found these ones inside The Nelson Hospital in Wimbledon in the 1970s and they really did transport me back to those happy days of life as a student nurse.
It's a dreadful morning here, pouring and dark and looking at the weather forecast not much let up during the day. I hope everyone has a good day and the weather were you are is a bit better than here. xx
