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Nurses' working conditions
My mother Winsome Daniels nee Wright was born in 1918. She trained and worked at Great Yarmouth General Hospital from 19 March, 1937 until 31 March, 1942 when she married my father. Over the years I had heard many stories of her nursing career but these had never been recorded However just after her 80th birthday it seemed appropriate to start writing her experiences down. My mother preferred to recount her past life as a nurse over several weeks without being audio recorded and I have endeavoured to use her words as much as possible. This is an extract from her story about working hours, conditions and training.
LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS
All of the nurses, even the staff nurses and sisters lived in the nurses' home. Matron had a bedroom and sitting room in the main hospital. We each had our own bedrooms and there were separate sitting rooms for probationer nurses, staff nurses and sisters. I suppose it was a bit like being in a girls' boarding school. There was a very strict hierarchy and junior nurses were soon put in their place if they did not show enough respect for their seniors. Although I experienced this occasionally on the whole I felt comfortable with the situation and enjoyed my years at the hospital very much. The sisters could be very strict but they did look after us and were concerned for our welfare. Matron was an inspiring figurehead but as I got older I recognised her value and expertise.
During our training we rotated every three months between the wards, operating theatre, out-patients, and casualty. Day duty started at 7.30am and ended at 8.30pm with two and half hours off each day, either in the morning or afternoon. The dinner break was added to our off-duty and we went to first or second sitting depending on our hours off. Night duty was from 8.30pm until 8.00am. During this time there was one break of an hour when we went to the dining room in shifts for the midnight meal. This was prepared by the junior probationer who also acted as a runner between all the wards which was very good experience. When we were on night...