Our Country Nurse: Can East End Nurse Sarah find a new life caring for babies in the country?. Sarah Beeson
meet you, Nurse,’ she gushed. ‘But we’ll have none of this Mr and Mrs Farthing business. I’m Flo and he’s Clem. You follow me – I’ll take you up to the flat and get the kettle on. As you know, Clem and I are the caretakers for the clinic. I keep it spick and span and look after you ladies, and Clem does any odd jobs that need doing. We’ve given your flat a good set-to this morning, haven’t we, Clem?’
Clem nodded in accordance with his wife and tossed a handful of feed to the clucking hens. ‘I’m going to check on Bessie.’
I looked enquiringly. ‘The pig,’ explained Flo. ‘An Essex we got from Joe Rudcliff at Treetops Farm for fattening. And right soft Clem is about it too. Calls it Queen Bess for crying out loud.’ Clem said nothing and hurried away to the pig sty at the back of their cottage garden. ‘You mark my words, Clement Farthing, come Easter that porker will do very nicely indeed.’ Flo’s words disappeared on the cool early autumn breeze. She rearranged her face from scolding to motherly and said encouragingly, ‘Follow me, dear. We’ll pop in through the back gate.’
‘You have a beautiful garden,’ I said admiringly.
She beamed with pride. ‘We’ve been here over 40 years. Since the day we were married.’
Flo expertly picked her way through poultry, garden produce and tools to the back lane, where the goat was thoughtfully chewing on someone else’s washing line. I thought of all my belongings left unattended on the street and felt uneasy. It seemed funny to be going in through the back door.
‘I think I better go back to my car and get the boxes to carry up to the flat first,’ I suggested weakly.
‘No need for that. Clem will do it. You don’t need to lift a finger. Give me your car keys, Nurse.’
I reluctantly pulled out my precious keys from the pocket of my denim shorts. ‘CLEM-eennntt,’ called Flo loudly. Clem popped his head up over the garden fence. Flo chucked the keys at him without saying a word and he gave a little half-salute and scuttled off to do her bidding.
A few yards down the lane was a tatty-looking gate that stood between two enormous blackberry bushes, with a rusty catch on it. Flo struggled to open the rusty catch and gave the gate a good kick; in response it opened with a shrill squeak.
‘I’ll get Clem to oil that tonight,’ she said more to herself than to me. ‘This is the garden. You go into the clinic through the front door of the cottage. You see there’s a side passage next to that little car park – well, that’ll bring you from the street right to your garden. The stairs are at the back to give you a little bit of privacy.’
She tutted as we walked down the long narrow plot, past the ancient apple, pear and cherry trees, neglected vegetable patches and an abandoned greenhouse. I looked at my garden longingly. It had so much potential. This was good earth. I could save a fortune if I got it going again.
‘I hope you don’t think Clem and I have been neglecting our duties,’ whispered Flo. ‘Only Nurse Hunter, who was the old district nurse who lived in the cottage until three months back, wouldn’t touch the garden. Wouldn’t let us lend a hand neither. She let it go to wrack and ruin. It’s criminal.’
‘Oh, dear. I like gardening. Perhaps you and Clem could help me restore it to its former glory, if it’s not too much trouble.’
‘Would you like that, Nurse?’ I nodded enthusiastically. ‘It would be an absolute pleasure. I’ve got a good feeling about you,’ she whispered conspiratorially, nudging me gently in the ribs.
‘Didn’t the new district nurse want the cottage?’ I asked as Flo rummaged in her pockets for the keys.
‘Oh, that one. She’s not much older than you and she likes a good time. No, Nurse Bates didn’t want to be in Totley. She turned down Ivy Cottage and opted for the bright lights of Maidstone. Wants to be near all them discotheques and swanky restaurants if you ask me.’
I quite liked the sound of Nurse Bates already. I was only in my mid-twenties; maybe I should have opted for nightlife over country life too. I’d been so thrilled to be offered the job and the flat that I hadn’t really thought about how much I was giving up by moving to the sticks. Oh well, too late now, I said to myself. And I really was quite excited about my garden. I’d done plenty of going out during my Hackney days – it was time to be grown-up off-duty as well as on, I resolved.
‘If you don’t mind me saying, Nurse, you’re the youngest health visitor I’ve seen – by a long way.’
I smiled. I didn’t say actually the youngest in the country by all accounts.
Flo produced the keys and held them up to my face. ‘Want to open the door to your new home?’ she asked with a twinkle in her grey eyes. I eagerly took them off her and rattled the heavy old key in the archaic lock. Flo ceremoniously pushed open the pale-blue door with a flourish and stepped back to let me cross the threshold to my new home.
I ran up the narrow staircase, my hand running up the wooden bannisters newly painted in creamy yellow. They led straight into the kitchen and living area. It was large and bright with a window seat overlooking Main Road. It was, as Flo had said, spick and span, though a little old fashioned with frilly floral curtain covered cupboards and a beautiful old butler sink sparklingly clean. Two faded chintz armchairs were arranged neatly opposite a matching sofa and a pale-blue Formica table stood in the kitchen surrounded by bright-yellow dining chairs. On it was a box of fruit and vegetables, some milk, eggs, a loaf of bread, a packet of tea and a fruit cake next to a little vase of roses.
‘Did you get these for me, Flo?’ I asked, looking through the box of goodies.
‘It’s a little something to get you started,’ she clucked.
‘Thank you so much, that’s incredibly kind. Let me give you some money for it,’ I insisted, reaching for my purse. I was grateful for their kindness and generosity and they didn’t even know me.
‘Put your money away, Nurse. It’s all from our garden anyway and I made the bread and the cake as today’s one of my baking days, and the milk is from the cow I keep at my sister’s. So, it didn’t cost nothing.’ Flo quickly changed the subject. ‘There’s a double bedroom at the back overlooking the garden,’ she continued with the guided tour. ‘The bathroom is through there and you’ll find a little storage cupboard with a hoover and brushes in it at the end of the corridor.’
‘It’s lovely,’ I enthused as I peeked out of the window onto the street below. Flo perched next to me on the window seat. The wedding party was now strewn around the lawn of the Village Hall. There were children running around, men drinking beer and women in floppy hats sipping wine in the sunshine. The bride and groom were greeting people as they walked past them into the hall.
‘I’ll have to pop over to the church soon and help the vicar tidy up – he’s not married yet, bless him and he doesn’t know a cornflower from a poppy,’ Flo told me.
‘I hope you didn’t miss the wedding on my account?’ I asked.
‘No, wasn’t invited,’ she sniffed sharply. ‘His family’s no better than they ought to be. Him, his brothers, his dad and his uncles all work up at the brewery and I would think they drink as much as they brew; no wonder the old place is on its way out. And she’s not been in the village five minutes and her family very much keeps themselves to themselves. They’re not even from Kent! Came from some town in Essex by all accounts. And you don’t have to be a nurse to see you’ll be visiting that girl sooner rather than later,’ remarked Flo with a knowing nod.
I can’t say I was salivating with the imparting of so much village gossip. I felt another short pang for city life and the anonymity of it all. Totley had looked idyllic as I drove through, but clearly life was going to be rather more sedate from now on. I sighed to myself.
The bride and groom eventually disappeared into the Village Hall after greeting the last of their guests. Flo left me to explore the rest of the flat on my own. I could hear the singing of the kettle as she prepared a little