D DAY NURSE

My MOTHER'S STORY: In the summer of 1942 I decided to leave my home in Currans, Co Kerry in south west Ireland. I was 20 and enjoyed working on my parents’ farm but I realised it didn’t offer me a future. I had a cousin, a priest, not much older than me who I had grown up with and that summer he took me to one side and he gave me a long talk. He said, ‘The only thing I can see for you at the end of your days is having a load of cats around you. You’re going to stay until you are so old nobody else is going to want you. They are all going to go away.’ But, I said ‘what can I do?’ ‘Oh rubbish’ he said ‘there’s lots you can do.’
That’s when I decided to become a nurse and I wrote for advice to an uncle of my father’s who lived in London. This was Dr Daniel O’ Sullivan, always known in the family as ‘the old man’, who was then well into his 90s. Awarded a medical degree at Edinburgh University, he once had a medical practice in Kerry but disliked the idea of having to earn his living by accepting fees from patients who couldn’t afford it. For that reason he joined the British Army with the rank of major and served in India. His brother followed in his footsteps but died of malaria in Sierra Leone on his first tour of duty.
This Great Uncle wrote back and outlined my options: he could find me a place in a London hospital which would mean that no charges would be involved, or he would pay the cost of my training in Ireland. I thought London would be best because if it turned out I was no good at nursing I’d always feel obligated to my uncle after he had paid a fee. So I took a chance on London and in February 1943 I arrived at Paddington Hospital in Harrow Road after two days travelling.

I should have been scared coming over but I was too innocent to be scared. I think looking back that people didn’t take advantage of me because I was so innocent. It was my salvation really. My parents weren’t scared for me either — the war was something that was happening out there. In Ireland we called it The Emergency and, although they followed it daily and kept up with the battles, I don’t think my parents knew enough about it to be scared.
There was a new school of 10 student nurses starting every month at Paddington and about 7 or 8 of those would be Irish. The hospital was very protective of us but the very first night — about 7 or 8 0’ Clock — the Irish arrivals had to go to Paddington Green police station to report in. We were told that any change of address had to be reported and we also had to tell them when we went away on holiday. A nurse from Dublin forgot to tell the police that she was going on holiday and she was fined very heavily.
When it came to air raids, the hospital made it clear that if were scared we shouldn’t be afraid to say so and if we weren’t on duty we could meet up at a covered point on the ground floor to be altogether. That February was fairly quiet in London; a fair amount of incendiary bombs went off but I didn’t take much notice of them.
In November 1943 London County Council hospitals were asked to send nurses to what had previously been a large mental hospital in Horton, just outside Epsom in Surrey. All the mental patients had been sent to Scotland. It was a huge place, a vast place with 1000s of bed: half for civilian patients, half for military. The two sides mixed quite happily but staff from St Thomas’ Hospital in London didn’t fraternize with anyone else.
I was put on night duty for three months, mainly on the mother and baby ward. All the civilian patients were from London. The mothers came down on the third day after the birth and they were kept for 6 or 7 days. There was about 50 beds on the ward and it was very busy but it was a wonderful change from London because there was a farm attached to the hospital and we had plenty of food, plenty of milk. We had a big cauldron of milk on the ward every day and the beautiful hot drinks we could make during the night! It was good there.
That summer the civilian patients were sent away. I don’t know where they went but for weeks we had no patients at all. Ward sisters could choose the staff that would remain. I’m happy to report I was one that was kept - others were sent back to their mother hospitals . We became a Casualty clearing station for Normandy and we were all young and eager for D Day. We wanted action, but we waited and waited, scrubbing already clean wards knowing something was about to happen, although no one would say what. And then about 8.30 at night the very first patient arrived — all by himself and still covered in wet sand. There we were a hospital full of nurses who hadn’t seen a patient for what seemed like ages - we devoured him.
I was on days at this time and we reluctantly went off duty and left our solitary patient to the night staff but when we came back on duty at 7.30 the next morning you couldn’t see the ward for patients. They were on the floor as well as the beds; all bandages, blood and sand. It was the real thing. We patched them up - we only had them about 24 hours unless they were very ill — and they were moved on once they were fit to travel. But it soon came to an end because then the doodlebugs came over and a lot of our patients were shell shocked and when it got very bad thye were evacuated further north. Then for the first time, we had native patients, Surrey patients from the surrounding area. They were mainly casualties from the doodlebugs. While we were down in Surrey we heard of the doodlebugs in London and then the incendiaries that followed — one came down through the roof of Paddington and started a fire . One of our year group was killed somewhere outside the hospital, and there were two sisters very badly injured.
It was around this time I was called to Matron’s office and told off for not keeping in touch with my family. Oh you girls are all the same, she said. It was so unfair because I wrote home regularly but of course I didn’t say anything, just took the chastisement.
It was only later — post took a long time to come and it was censored so sometimes you got a very tatty letter - that I discovered what it was all about. My father had cycled four miles to the nearest town to telephone the hospital because the Gardai (Irish Police) informed my parents that a young Irish nurse of my description had been injured beyond recognition in an air raid. They were trying to find out if it was me and I got told off!
I went back to Paddington in September 1944 and in November I went home on holiday for three weeks. It was very crowded on the trains and on the boat, only rarely did you get a seat. There would be a lot of troops travelling although you didn’t always know because it was against Irish law to wear the British uniform so the men going home on leave had to wear a civilian suit. The British Army very kindly provided them with one when they were going home.
Nurses didn’t get to choose when they went on holiday; it was just posted up in the dining room about six weeks before and you had to find your fare somehow out of the £2. 13s 4d you earned a MONTH as a student nurse (that’s about 85 pence a week in today’s money) and you had to have new clothes too for going away. A pair of shoes cost about 18 shillings and you had to have a sensible for when you were on duty and then you had to have going out shoes. The return fare to Ireland was about £6 at that time but later on — it might have been after the war — there was a special return ticket for 7/6 which was wonderful, but that might have specially for nurses, I don’t know.
Of course we lived in, and our accommodation was very comfortable. Our uniform was provided but we had to buy our expensive text books out of that small wage and we had to wear black stockings on duty which we had to buy ourselves. You had to mind them — they weren’t nylons — and they’d ladder terribly. In some ways it was a very meagre existence and we were often hungry, although of course we were cushioned from food rationing, but to make up for that we did have plenty of company. We were all the time in and out of each other’s room and we had a great social life. I remember going to firemen dances and complimentary tickets for West End shows would be left at matron’s office and you could have them if you were off duty. We tried to go to the cinema once a week. I think it cost 1/9 at that time. They were great places — especially for civilians — because they were heated. There were news theatres too that were very popular and they showed nothing but news reels. They cost a lot less and there were heated as well and that was a great bonus.
we were young and the young always find ways of making fun whatever is going on around them.

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