‘Yes, Mrs Tattersall,’ I agreed with her. ‘But then again it’s reassuring to have the paediatricians and doctors, and the theatre on hand if need be, sometimes.’
‘Granted, Linda,’ she said. ‘But a good community midwife should be able to assess when a home birth is not a safe option. Look at it like this. If you give birth at home, there’s a good chance you’ll have two midwives attending – the community midwife and a pupil midwife. What happens in hospital? Tell me that? The place is always bursting at the seams, with one poor midwife trying to look after four or five labouring women all at the same time. Where’s the sense in that? If you’ve got no complications, I can’t see why any woman would choose to be stuck in hospital. That’s a complication in itself, if you ask me.’
I was reminded of this conversation when I bumped into Mrs Tattersall in the car park when I was on my way into work one morning, in the spring of 1972. As usual she had a cigarette in one hand and delivery pack in the other, and she was rushing purposefully towards her trusty green Avenger.
‘What a carry on!’ she complained. ‘What did I tell you about ruddy hospitals?’
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘Flamin’ laundry strike!’ she retorted, charging past me. ‘Can’t stop. Third baby. Waters broke in the Co-op, would you believe.’
As soon as I arrived on the ward I was approached by an agitated Miss Sefton, who was carrying a bag of dirty baby linen. I was startled to see she was wearing a pair of green Wellington boots over her stockings instead of her usual small-heeled court shoes. The boots looked quite comical alongside her immaculately pressed Head of Midwifery uniform, but I tried not to react.
‘Follow me, Sister Buckley!’ she commanded.
Unfortunately, I think I must have gaped at her for a moment, as she chided: ‘Don’t just stand there, follow me!’
I did as I was told, and was amused to see she had turned the bathroom into a makeshift laundry and had been washing baby linen herself, in the bath.
‘Please take over here,’ she said. ‘I have asked the patients to help us out and bring in their own linen and nappies where possible, but we simply cannot have dirty laundry littering the hospital. It is wholly unhygienic.’
‘Right away,’ I said, placing a disposable plastic apron over my uniform before I set to work.
‘Thankfully we have managed to gain access to some twin tubs and dryers that are set up in another part of the hospital, but it’s all hands to the pump I’m afraid,’ Miss Sefton informed me.
The laundry workers’ dispute lasted for about four weeks and the wards became more and more colourful by the day as patients brought in their own bed linen and baby clothes. Despite the newness of the wards, the only colour we were used to seeing was on the pretty floral curtains hanging around each bed. Cot sheets, blankets, bedclothes, nappies and baby nighties were all generally white or a very pale green, chosen to promote a tranquil environment on the ward.
Now, babies were dressed in pale pink, blue and yellow nighties and swaddled in blankets decorated with ducks, trains and goodness knows what else. One little girl even had a frilly lemon-coloured dress on, complete with tiny matching satin bloomers and a mob cap. The mishmash of colours made the wards look quite a muddle, but despite all this, the usual strict routines were adhered to.
For example, each lady was allowed just one or two congratulation cards and a vase of flowers on her locker top. There were never any giant teddy bears or bunches of balloons festooned around the beds as we have today; Miss Sefton would never have allowed such clutter.
‘Come and sit with me and have a hot orange,’ Sister Kelly said to me one morning, when order was finally restored. I can’t remember much about the politics of the laundry workers’ strike, but the workers certainly made the point that they provided a much-needed service which we could not manage without for very long. Trade union bosses secured the promise of improved pay and conditions for the workers, which hastened their return to work.
‘Tell me, Linda, how are yer finding it here on Ward 29?’ Sister Kelly asked.
I watched as she scratched her bosom through her uniform, the same way she had done on the first day I started at Ashton Hospital on 1 January 1970. I smiled to myself, thinking how much I enjoyed working alongside such a familiar character. I was no longer shocked by Sister Kelly’s peculiar habits, and even when she wiped her nose on the back of her hand or wore the same tea-stained dress day after day, I didn’t turn a hair.
‘I absolutely love it,’ I told her truthfully. ‘I’m in my element here, I really am.’
‘That’s good, so it is,’ she said. ‘I’ll let yer in on a secret. I had me doubts about the move, being that much older. But honest to God, I think it’s marvellous here too, I really do.’
She sucked her teeth and looked me up and down.
‘Tell me now, are you and that handsome husband of yours thinking of having babies of your own?’
‘Oh yes, of course,’ I said. I wasn’t in the slightest bit put out by the question. I knew Sister Kelly liked any excuse to have a good chinwag, and this was friendly conversation, nothing more. Twenty-four was a very typical age for a young married woman to be starting a family, and it was something Graham and I were planning for in the very near future.
‘Good for you,’ Sister Kelly replied. ‘I think having a baby yerself can only make yer an even better little midwife.’
I enjoyed talking to Sister Kelly. She was like a mother hen, and she always left me with a warm glow, whatever she said. I wasn’t really sure that becoming a mother myself could make me a better midwife, and Sister Kelly herself was not a mother, but I nodded and enjoyed her friendly and supportive chatter all the same.
A few weeks later, at the beginning of May, I received an unexpected phone call from my father. ‘Linda, your mum has a pain in her back and we’re not going on holiday.’
My dad was always a man of few words, and on that occasion it turned out he excelled himself. The back pain was so severe my mum had been rushed into Ashton General to be checked over, and when I went in to visit her and find out what was going on she told me in a very matter-of-fact manner, ‘I’ve had a heart attack.’
‘What?!’ I gasped. ‘Dad told me you had a bad back.’
Mum looked perfectly fine, and a doctor appeared and explained that the heart attack had been very minor, and that she would be given drugs for angina and allowed home in a few days as long as she promised to rest.
‘Has she been doing too much?’ the doctor asked me.
‘She works hard in our family bakery,’ I explained.
‘Perhaps it’s time she took things a bit easier,’ he suggested. ‘She’s been lucky this time, but this should be treated as a warning to her to slow down.’
‘What a nuisance,’ Mum said. ‘I had my suitcase packed and everything.’ That was typical of my mother. She has a fierce practical streak, and she has never been one to dwell on misfortune.
Mum was kept in for several days, and happily her recovery period was brightened up with the news that she had become a grandmother for the second time, which was a boost for the whole family.
My niece Tijen was born on 15 May 1972 in Vienna, a second child for my brother John and his wife Nevim, and a little sister for my twenty-month-old nephew Kerem. We couldn’t wait to receive a photograph in the post, and when it finally arrived I was thrilled. Tijen looked very sweet, had dark hair and was very petite – a description that still fits her to this day, in fact.
We were all delighted, of course, and I think the new arrival, as well as the shock of suffering the heart attack, made my mother