Calico Nurse - first part

Written at 87 year of age!

For many years, since the age of 32, until today – 55 years later – I have spent my time reading the stories of authors who have written about countries they have visited or of their own past experiences. Now, at the age of 87 and being in good health and of sound mind, I think I will write a book of maternity nursing in the 1920’s.

I suppose everyone at some time in their life, has had the impulse or the urge to reach that spark which is within each one of us, to do something to help humanity find life a little easier. So many of us never have our inner spark disturbed; nothing seems to matter one way or the other. Whether one even has a spark which needs someone or something to blow on it to turn the feeble little spark into a flame of endeavor is hard to tell. Even so, no matter how much one would like to be of use to the world it is difficult to know where and how to start, or why there must be a reason. If it hadn’t been for the First World War I would never have become a maternity nurse. Looking back on those days, before the 1920’s, it will be hard for present day readers to really grasp the fervor and patriotism, which gripped everyone in the Empire.

It was during the First World War that my husband, Monty, who had a thriving automobile garage in our small town of Camberley, Surrey, had the urge. Throwing all discretion to the wind he enlisted in the Royal Engineers as a dispatch rider which, of course, took him to the front trenches. During his duty he was a victim of gas poisoning which put him into Salisbury Hospital for six weeks after which he returned to the front for the remainder of his service in the war. He rode that motorcycle to the front trenches wet with mud above his knees. He was sent back two or three times to the base – the last time he was discharged and sent home with Bright’s Disease, trench feet and mustard gas poisoning and eventually died of complications later in his life. He had left two young men employed at his garage who promised to look after it while he was away. Shortly after he left they applied to the Tribunal for exclusion from military service because they were looking after the interests of an enlisted soldier and they were granted exemption on compassionate grounds. It wasn’t long before they told me that
they could no longer look after the garage as business had dropped to the point where there was no longer money for wages. Within a month they had opened a garage of their own.


Montague Pembroke Bowdery

The war was responsible too, for further inroads into the family finances. My mother-in-law had been involved in the antique business for most of her married life but with the advent of war, this luxury business suffered and she closed her shop. There we were both unemployed but anxious to do something to help the war effort.

It was not that event nor the fact that the two mechanics my husband had left to keep the home fires burning, as it were, left to start a garage of their own which blew upon my spark. It was, rather, the knowledge that there was a shortage of maternity nurses and midwives at the time that gave me the idea to make a change. I was, at the time, closing up the garage when my mother-in-law persuaded me to take the three children and stay with her until the end of the war. She was a dear soul and loved my children very much. We got along very well together and we often spoke of our doing so little to help the war effort. One day out of the blue I said, “Mother, what do you think of my going into training for midwifery?” She thought for a moment and said, “I think it would be a capital idea, then we would both be working for the war effort, I with the children to look after and you in training”.

Stay tuned... the next bit is coming on a new post in a few days!

In The Beginning...

Thinking back, I am very warm and cozy in my little house in Sandhurst, just through the Royal Military College grounds. I was born on June 7, 1886 in this very small village which I hope will always remain a very small village, at least as long as I am here to enjoy it. Although there have been many changes there are people born around 1886 that still remain here to think and talk about, so I think I will write of some of the things I can remember. Maybe someone will chance to pick up this book and remember the dear world, as it was not so very long ago, just a mere 85 years.

I can remember so much of my childhood, almost from the day I was born. You see I didn’t enter into the world with great rejoicing. My father loved my mother very dearly and childbirth was a very anxious and difficult time, even for a healthy person, which my mother was not. So, it was not surprising that when the doctor announced that things were not going well and it might be a case of saving mother or child, my father made no bones about his decision to save his wife. Doctor Stead, being our family doctor, and a very conscientious one at that, did as my father asked him and saved us both. I sometimes wonder if that was a wise decision on my father’s part, as I have heard many folk to regret the day I was born.

I was not really a bad child, just very active and always wanted to do something mischievous. I sometimes wonder if I was really as much trouble as everyone seemed to think, because until I was 10 years of age I was rather a sickly child, bronchitis being my chief enemy. No sooner did the dull days of November appear than I would start to wheeze. My mother would move my young brother Will from the bedroom he had been enjoying up to the attic and establish me in his place. Out would come the bronchitis kettle, the flannel chest protector and the hot camphorated oil. After being rubbed down, front and back, my mother would then give me a large dose of appicaciama (?) wine, wrap me in a flannel nightdress and pop me into bed. As soon as the wheezing and tightness in my chest was relieved I was fed every two hours with spoonfuls of beef tea. I doubt readers of this episode have ever heard of beef tea. It is made from shin-of-beef, cooked in a crock and allowed to gently stew for 3 or 4 hours in the oven of the kitchen stove, which was kept going with wood. How many years it has been since I have tasted such a delicious broth. For two to three weeks I would have the pleasure of seeing my two sisters, Rose and Nell, performing their allotted tasks, including my own. We each had our allotted tasks and did them to the best of our ability and if by any chance we neglected to do our best, it would have to be done again. I remember one day, my work for that week was to sweep and dust the stairs. My mother would always inspect our work when we had finished and that morning I was anxious to get my work done and go out to play so I had gone into the corners but had not swept from the center of the stairs. My mother was very cross and scolded me very much, so I said, “Mama, you always say, look after the corners and the middle will look after itself”. Of course I had to do it all over again but that was the kind of parents I had. My father was a good and just man who believed in spare the rod and spoil the child.

more will follow...

Why I'm Blogging

My grandmother wrote a short story and gave it to me years ago... it is sitting on a shelf in my office. It is an interesting piece of history so I thought I'd like to place it somewhere to share so I decided that maybe a blog would work for this.