Bath Times and Nursery Rhymes: The memoirs of a nursery nurse in the 1960s

Joe who came from the Middle East fell in love with me. A big man with dark skin and a ready smile, he was a student and although his parents were wealthy, he never seemed to have much money either. He was kind and loving and I have always regretted that I didn’t stop the relationship sooner. I’m afraid that I unwittingly hurt him deeply. He came home and met my parents, which of course must have given him hope that our relationship would go further but he was a Muslim and I wasn’t prepared to change my culture or beliefs, something which would have been required of me. Joe’s father was a well-respected newspaper publisher, regularly commuting to New York and the UN, where he represented his country.

At the beginning of our relationship, Joe complained of the cold English winter, so I told him I would knit him a sweater. We chose some bright red wool and big needles and I began. When I decided that I wanted to break up the relationship I still had to knit the wretched jumper and because I knew it had cost him a lot of money, I felt honour bound to complete it. He was a big man and it took forever but eventually I’d finished. He was so proud of it, but then I dumped him. I was trying to do the right thing, but looking back I obviously sent out some very confusing messages.

Another boy I met was called Nafis, who came from Pakistan. One time when Nafis and I had a date, he was looking very sad. He kept shaking his head and saying, ‘I wish I hadn’t done it.’

‘Hadn’t done what?’

‘Last night Marilyn Monroe telephoned me from Hollywood,’ he said. ‘She begged me for a date but I said I was busy. I told her I was taking you to the pictures and now look what’s happened.’

It was a bit of a sick joke but I laughed from politeness. It was August 1962 and Marilyn Monroe, reputedly the sexiest girl in the world, had just been found dead. Nafis didn’t last very long as a boyfriend either. Not because of his bad taste jokes or the fact that his mouth tasted like an ashtray; the problem was that he was tiny. I thought I was overweight, although looking at photographs at the time, I wasn’t really. But I hated being made to feel big and Nafis made me feel like an elephant. He never knew why I dumped him.

Then there was Coover. He used to send Evie red roses. How I envied her, with all those lovely roses and Coover.

When she got back to nursery, Hilary decided Evie was too prudish for her own good and so when she was in the bath, Hilary rattled the bathroom door until the bolt slid back. She and I marched in while poor Evie struggled to cover her ample bosom with the smallest of flannels. We were being heartless really and I don’t think for one minute we thought we were going to change how Evie felt but the event was typical of the tactics Hilary enjoyed.

I became something of a dressmaker. One time Evie didn’t have a thing to wear and she was going on a date. I had a day off so I said I would make her something. In her morning off duty, she hurried into town and bought something which looked an awful lot like curtain material. I spent the afternoon making her a sack dress. It had three large sunflowers down the front, a scoop neckline and no sleeves. I finished it just as she came off duty and she wore it that night.

Now that I had a little money in my pocket, clothes became increasingly important. 1962 saw the rise of Carnaby Street in London. It was near Oxford Street in Soho and was full of fashion boutiques. Hilary and I were still stuck in the ‘everything to match’ era of the late 1950s but that didn’t stop me drooling over dresses which I couldn’t afford. My best outfit of the day was a patterned orange and brown blouse, worn with a brown pencil skirt and a big orange cardigan. Hilary looked very smart in her pink swagger coat over a navy dress. She had navy stilettos, matching handbag and long navy gloves. Contrast that with Mary Quant’s mini skirts and the sack dress and you can see how radically different the fashions were becoming. The bright bold colours were amazing.

There wasn’t a great opportunity to help the children develop a taste in dress and appearance although just like every other child, the children in care showed some interest in clothes. They liked nothing better than to see us in our ‘going-out clothes’ as they called them. Often a girl would promise the older children to come back into the nursery and show them her ‘party’ dress if she was going somewhere special. I remember going into the night nursery to show the children my new dress when I was on my way out. I did a couple of twirls in the middle of the room when Rosie climbed to the end of her bed. ‘What are those?’ she asked, as she patted my chest.

‘They’re my boobs,’ I said.

‘My daddy’s got some of those,’ she said gravely.

The only real way to foster a personal interest in what you wear is when you are given a choice. The children in the nursery had little of that. I do remember the odd occasion when a child hated a certain dress or pair of trousers and in that case we would change it for another item from central stores but that isn’t really choice. Even so, sometimes getting dressed could be fun. Cory was supposed to be getting dressed but instead he was fooling around. ‘Cory,’ I said, ‘would you like to put your socks on?’ ‘No thank you,’ came the reply. ‘I think I’ll wear my feet today!’

The one time when children did have choice about what to put on was when we got out the dressing-up box. It was interesting to note that sometimes the shy child seemed to come out of his or her shell when they had something different on. Our dressing-up boxes were really good. Sometimes when the children had chosen their outfits we would put on a record or switch on the radio and have music and movement as well. There were always a few items of dressing-up clothes in the Wendy house and an apron or a hat could transform any game into something much more exciting.

For me, the discovery of boys was a welcome distraction but we still worked incredibly hard. Matron would move us around, especially if she thought we were making what she called ‘an attachment’. Every day began at 6.30 a.m. when the ‘duty girl’ came round with a cup of tea. Everyone had to be on duty at 7 a.m. so the scramble for the bathroom was pretty hectic and you had to be quick. No time for a bath of course, as there was a queue of girls behind you, all rushing to be on duty at the same time. We all took it in turns to be the ‘duty girl’. The night nurse would bring a large teapot to your room and leave it. Then the duty girl had to pour the tea and make sure everyone else in the house was awake.

The decorators were in and Hilary’s and my room was top of the list. While it was being done, we both had to move. I think I got the better deal because Hilary’s bed was squashed into a room with two other girls while I was asked to share with Christine.

Christine’s room was on the ground floor in the ‘cottage’. The room had once been part of the stables of the big house. I was duty girl for the morning, so the night before I had laid out the cups and saucers on a tray and put them on the floor in between our beds. That night we had a fierce summer storm, which was highly atmospheric. During a brief lull, we heard the distinct rattle of cups.

‘What was that?’ I said into the darkness.

‘I don’t know.’ Christine’s voice was little more than a strained whisper.

The sound of rattling cups echoed through the room.

By now my heart was bumping with fear. Neither of us had a bedside light. The only light was from the light switch by the door. ‘Get out and put on the light.’

‘I’m not getting out of bed,’ said Christine. ‘I’m too scared. You get out.’

I couldn’t do it either, so the pair of us lay in bed utterly terrified and unable to sleep. Who or what was in our room we hadn’t a clue, but we were both thoroughly spooked up. I imagined it to be a snake or a rat or a ghost. Daylight was painfully slow to come and it was first light before we finally dropped off. But when the night nurse switched on the light as she brought in the teapot, we couldn’t believe our eyes. Rolled in a neat little ball in the middle of the tray, spilled cups of milk all around him, lay a very sleepy hedgehog!

Hilary and I moved back into our newly painted room. It was much better although not quite as wonderful as we had been led to believe. The wallpaper was the same all around the room, which was a blessing, but it was large turquoise blue poppies. We had new curtains in turquoise, although not the same shade of colour and we still had the same mismatched purple counterpanes. As we still hadn’t reached the psychedelic atmosphere of the 1970s, it seemed rather odd.

There were a few girls who never did make it to do their training. Isolde, the girl who laughed in the sitting when Nurse Adams missed her date, left a couple of weeks after the event. Another girl was Laura Duncan. She was older than me, about nineteen, and had lived a very sheltered life. She became the butt of comment and jokes and for a time, I joined in, but then I could see that she was really struggling. I remembered my own struggles with homesickness and the sheer relentless hard work and I began to feel ashamed. As a result, when we worked together I tried to help her whenever I could. She was a plain-Jane who looked a lot like Joyce Grenfell, with big teeth and a long face. She was gawky and awkward in her movements and although obviously well educated, she was totally impractical. One morning we were assigned to sweep up one of the playrooms and Laura almost fell over the long-handled brush. I actually had to show her how to use it!

Because I was kind to her, she stuck to me like a limpet. I liked her but we had little in common. Her parents were very over-protective and would come to the nursery to spend her off-duty with her. They never gave the poor girl a chance to be her own person. Sometimes they would take her into town for a coffee and a look around the shops but if it was raining, they would simply sit in the car together on the driveway. It wasn’t her fault but it was little wonder that people laughed at her. A couple of times, when we shared the same off duty, she would come with me into town or to the pictures. That’s why her mother invited me to their house. Laura was on holiday and I had a day off so I caught the Green Line bus to Dorking, where she lived. I had asked for the name of her road and the driver called it out as we arrived. To my dismay, Laura wasn’t there waiting for me as she had promised. I didn’t realise but the road was in the shape of a large horseshoe; I had got off at one end and she was waiting at the other.

Still, I had the name of the house and the number so I set off to find it for myself. The houses in her street were very large with huge gardens. It was clearly the sort of place where bankers and pop stars lived. Laura’s house was a tad smaller than the others in the road but it was detached and in its own grounds. As soon as her mother opened the door, she almost had an apoplectic fit. She put her hand to her head and leaned dramatically in the doorway.

Slightly confused, I introduced myself. ‘Hello, I’m Pam, Laura’s friend.’

Putting both hands on her head she cried out a tirade of words, ‘Oh Pamela, poor Laura! She’s waiting for you at the bus stop. She went that way and you’ve come up from the other side. She’ll be devastated that you haven’t come. Oh, I can’t bear it! You must go and find her. You must go to her, Pamela. Go. Go now!’

Bewildered and a little shocked by the amateur dramatics, I turned tail and ran down the road. I met Laura coming back. ‘Your mother was terrified that you’d think I hadn’t come,’ I smiled awkwardly.

Laura seemed unperturbed. ‘I guessed what had happened,’ she said.

When we got back, her mother fussed over us like an old hen. She offered us coffee and went to the kitchen to prepare it. When she came back, she set up a folding stand and put a big brass table on the top of it.

‘We live very humbly here, Pamela,’ she assured me. ‘People think because of the area, we are rich but as you will see, that is not the case.’

Well, she certainly looked well off to me, not that I cared one jot.

Laura and I had quite a nice day but her mother was totally overbearing. She gave us coffee in the sitting room, insisted we sat in the garden until lunchtime, and after the meal, sent us up to Laura’s bedroom until it was time for the brass table and a pot of afternoon tea.

It was shortly after that that Laura left the nursery. We simply got the message that she wasn’t coming back. I really hope it was nothing to do with me, but I can’t help wondering. Perhaps after our day together, her mother decided that she didn’t want her well-bred daughter mixing with the likes of me. I felt sorry for Laura and even more sorry that I never got to say goodbye.

Things were about to change. It was the end of August 1962 and I had completed my year as a nursery assistant. Latterly, I had enjoyed my time there and I think I had gained a little more confidence. I had finally overcome my homesickness, made new friends and I had taken on board some of the more important aspects of childcare. Now I was moving to the nursery, where I was to begin my two-year nursery nurse training. I was keen to get on with the job and a little nearer that all-important qualification. If I’d thought I’d had it hard as a nursery assistant, life had been a picnic compared to what I faced now.

Chapter 5

My new nursery was a large bleak building surrounded by rolling lawns. The rest of the grounds that had surrounded it when it was a private house dwelling had been sold off. Some had been developed and given over to council housing and shops. The whole estate was entered by a long sweeping driveway, ending in a cul-de-sac and the house.

The home was run by a Matron who was very large. She always wore a navy nylon overall and because of her great weight, she lumbered along. She had short dark brown hair, a round face and looked a lot like the Queen Mother before she grew very old; she also had a rather high-pitched whiney voice. The day I arrived, she called us new girls into the office, one by one. There were four of us who began as students together. Hilary had come with me to the same nursery but Evie had gone to another one, somewhere else in the county.

When it was my turn to meet her, Matron Dickenson (we called her ‘Dickie’ behind her back) gave me a limp lettuce handshake and puffed up her ample bosom. ‘We are all happy in this nursery,’ she barked. ‘And you will be happy.’ It was more of a command than an invitation.

Hilary and I were faced with more or less the same kind of routine so it didn’t take us very long to settle in. The hall landing and stairs were very dark and even in bright sunlight we had to have the light on upstairs. There was a lot of dark wood panelling; dark parquet floors and the mahogany doors were heavy. Once again the children were divided into three groups, Babies, Tweenies and Toddlers, and we spent most of the day cleaning.

We may have been slaves to the routine in the new nursery but there was still a lot of fun to be had. The day began at 7 a.m. when we arrived in the nursery to begin dressing the children. Every child had a wash in the morning. The babies and tweenies were ‘topped and tailed’ and the older children went to the bathroom to make a valiant attempt to wash themselves. We had to get everyone dressed by 8 a.m. when it was time for breakfast. The children ate in their own groups. Babies were bottle-fed in the baby room, while the tweenies and the toddlers were together in the children’s dining room. The meals were enormous. For breakfast they would have either cereal or porridge, then a cooked breakfast, which might be bacon, egg and half a slice of fried bread, or maybe scrambled egg on toast. The night nurse had made marmalade sandwiches for everyone. Tweenies had half a slice of bread made into a sandwich each, and the toddlers a whole slice of bread (two sandwiches). They drank milk or milky tea. After breakfast, everybody went to the toilet. At 9 a.m. the girls who had had their breakfast at 8.30 a.m. came back to relieve those who had stayed to look after the children. There was free play in the playrooms until 9.30 a.m. In the tweenie room, the children, after another visit to the toilet, then went into their prams outside. Sometimes we took them for a walk, but mostly in the morning, they slept in the pram shed or out in the garden while we cleaned the nurseries. The toddlers had the better toys under the supervision of the nursery warden. We also had water, sand and painting for them to do. They were divided into two groups and half the morning was spent with the messy stuff, and the other half in the playroom. If it was fine, everybody was outside in the garden. Lunch was around twelve noon and they would have two courses. After lunch, it was time for a rest. The toddlers slept on stretchers in the playroom, while the babies and tweenies were in their cots.

Many years ago, I met one of the children I’d looked after as a little one. He was in his twenties and he enjoyed reminiscing about his stay in the nursery. One thing puzzled him.

‘You used to make us sleep on the table,’ he told me.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and then realised he’d obviously thought the stretchers were tables!

After lunch it was back to the playroom, going out for a walk, or having a spell playing in the garden. Tea was at 4 p.m. and they had bread and butter, maybe a boiled egg, and cakes. After tea we told them stories until it was time to get ready for bed.

Two of us did the bathing from 5 p.m. Another girl collected the children from wherever they were (in the playroom or the garden) and brought them upstairs for us. As soon as they were undressed, we gave them a short time of free play in the bath. I loved bath time. The children had toys to play with and sometimes we’d splash and make a mess. Bearing in mind some of the awful conditions these children had come from, there was nothing nicer than putting a warm, happy child, smelling deliciously of talcum powder, into a clean bed. The children themselves were usually keen to come up for their baths. I remember the time when Mark came upstairs from the garden, where he’d been running about in the evening sunshine. He looked hot and sticky. I went to help him undress but he told us he was a big boy and could get undressed himself. As he whipped off his trousers he looked down at himself and said, ‘Awww, look. My willy has gone to sleep!’

Everybody had a milky drink and they would have a bedtime story in the nursery before we kissed them goodnight. After that, we sorted their clothes ready for the morning and then it was time to go for our supper at 7 p.m.