Oh how things have changed in the nursing world-gone are those ‘elderly’ care oriented ladies of thirty years ago, who ran their patches with, (often well concealed) kind hearts, and a sense of true vocation to their calling!

Mostly single, their lives were dedicated to the care of their patients, their wards, their consultants, their qualified staff nurses and their domestic staff. Their wards were controlled by them ,and anyone who entered was subjected to that control.

Sr.Mack was one of those – a she who must be obeyed-kind of ward sister; if she said ‘hop’-you hopped. By my reckoning at nineteen years of age-she had to be close to ninety; well of course she couldn’t have been-but then at nineteen almost everyone was old anyway.

She was a tall slim lady, unmarried, and totally dedicated to her vocation, the term career would never have entered her vocabulary. Most of the ward sisters were like that: nursing was a vocation –and no man was ever going to come between them and their chosen path in life.

With Sr. Mack this control was most evident in her dealings with a student nurse or a new junior house doctor. A part of her ‘calling’ was having the judgement to recognise that student nurses were a blight on her patch, at least for the first few weeks of our stint on her ward; sometimes you might be lucky and a newer group of students might join you-in which case your status became slightly elevated from totally stupid to just stupid- high praise indeed.

To my young mind, the hospital was run by a band of ancient ladies from a time long past; the matron, assistant matron and her crew of ward sisters.Out of the whole lot of them –one sister was married and under fifty years of age.

This apparent ‘ageist ‘ attitude on my part, and that of my peers, was not helped by the fact that there seemed to be an unwritten rule(maybe it was written ,but I never saw it) that at a certain point in a woman’s life –anywhere from forty five upwards-she went to a hairdresser and had her hair set. Now, having her hair set-it seemed- was a kind of ritualistic event that marked another ‘coming of age’ in a woman’s lifetime’.

A hair set involved, getting a short hair cut then having a copious amount of curls added with the aid of trusty curlers-tiny ones –good and tight was best ,and then the whole head was sprayed with an aerosol can of some dubious substance to render the hair almost rock hard. The wearing of a hairnet at night was an advantage in keeping this ‘set’ as good as new- for a few days anyway.

Of course, most of these ladies were very adept at putting in their curlers at night-so that they always looked well turned out-until the next visit to the hairdresser. All of these fine ward sisters belonged to this ‘hair set brigade’ as we cheeky students liked to refer to them.

It was compulsory for a student nurse to ‘live in’ for the first two years of her (yes her!) training. Almost every aspect of her life was controlled to some extent-one late night a week was allowed until 2am-but despite our ‘stupidity’-we soon discovered the truth in the saying ‘where there’s a will ,there’s a way’.

The nurses’ home as it was called, was a residence for all first and second year students, and most of these elderly ward sisters also lived there.. No male, was allowed past the main entrance hallway, under any circumstances whatsoever

. A rare visit from a doctor-specially appointed to the onerous job of looking after our health-meant dragging our aching bodies and sniffles down, sometimes three flights of stairs, and presenting ourselves in a- morgue like- room for his professional opinion. He was no pushover-a mere glance at a sick student nurse told him whether you were really dying or just almost dying. Inevitably almost dying meant return to duty tomorrow.

If you had the mixed blessing of being diagnosed as really dying, well on the positive side, you got to spend a few days in bed, listen to the radio and read a good book or two. Light, easily digested meals were delivered by the ‘warden’ and a reliable sensible senior student had the responsibility of checking you out, and reporting back on your condition. Your temperature was always checked under your armpit-just in case you may have ‘accidently’ taken a nice hot drink in anticipation of her visit.

The negative side was you were not allowed any visitors-‘cross-infection’ girls. In my misguided charity, when one of my pals was confined to her room, following the more desired diagnosis, really dying, I came to her room bearing gifts. We did it all the time –but I got caught. This girl, being of good Northern Ireland stock, was partial to a particular N.I. culinary delicacy-chips and curry sauce-so her wish was my command.

The poor starved girl was fantasising about this feast. I also took it upon myself to decide that she also needed the best old cure for a fever-a wee hot toddy or two. I duly arrived at her room, in the company of another delinquent student, and set about seeing to the needs of my poor dying pal.

Yes, sometimes shock causes a certain vagueness; my immediate memories are still vague, but I do remember the walk of shame (ha! that’s what they thought) to the assistant matron’s office.

She talked at length about my lack of consideration for the world as a whole-and it was then, that I learned, that I personally was responsible for every illness that existed or would ever exist throughout mankind.

So now you know that, forget your conspiracy theories about swine ‘flu’ and all the rest, I hold my hand up –I did it.

Anyway, back to the ward-Sr. Mack’s ward-where else!

She had a particularly entertaining way of referring to patients; it was never her intention to entertain-but despite her best efforts –she did.Nowadays, the process of giving two paracetamol to a patient all but requires the presence of a lawyer, to be sure to be sure.

Sr Mack’s methods would be frowned upon by modern day codes of practise

.Each patient was referred to by his/her specific condition and the specialist who was looking after them.So, instructions such as ‘’,Nurse ,would you give two glycerine suppositories to Mr. Brown’s prostatectomy’ or ‘’Nurse, ring x-ray and see if they are ready to take Mr. Brown’s gallbladder’ were her usual manner of speech..

It was even funnier when an order was given with regard to Mr. Green’s hysterectomy-‘’Nurse, see if Mr. Green’s hysterectomy has had physiotherapy yet’’.

Ah the good old days-I wonder now, did I remember to give that injection to Mr. Green’s ovarian cyst!-

Cheers- I’m off now to have my hair set.