Читать книгу Sixty Years a Nurse - Mary Hazard - Страница 6

I first met Mary Hazard at my local GP’s surgery, the Bounds Green Group Practice, when I moved into the area in 2000. She took my blood at the surgery one day, and I was immediately struck by her vibrant personality, her amazing manner and her fantastic sense of humour. It soon became very clear that Mary was an institution. Everyone at the surgery revered her, and when she took blood it was a painless experience, accompanied by laughter and goodwill. One day she told me a story about how the women come in and say to her, ‘Will it hurt?’ and she says, ‘Yes, it’s a little prick,’ and they say, ‘OK, go ahead,’ and they’re fine. And then the men come in, ask the same question, look brave and then, ‘Boom, they’re on the floor.’ Mary is a larger than life, wonderfully warm, amazing character, always smartly dressed and up for anything (clubbing in a tiara in Leicester Square), and the surgery was not the same at all once she left in November 2013.

While writing this book I visited Mary one night at home and found a crowd of people round her front door, anxiously peering in her bay window. ‘Where is she?’ a worried neighbour said. ‘Oh, she might be unconscious on the kitchen floor,’ said another. Then some colleagues were visiting from the GP’s surgery, and were worried: ‘Where’s Mary? We hope she’s all right.’ The friends and neighbours, colleagues and passers-by were so worried about losing Mary, they forced her front door open, only to hear her loud, commanding voice booming from the pavement: ‘Sweet Jesus, what in hell do you think you’re doing? Can’t even go for a drink without being invaded?’ This was then accompanied by a raucous laugh, and we all knew that Mary had been off on her own, doing her own thing, having a quiet drink with friends down the pub, her little dog in tow. Mary is a total people magnet, who belies her age. Her neighbours call her ‘Queen Mary’ as she knows all the business in the street, is everyone’s friend, but always speaks her mind. Even at 80 she is never alone, since the doorbell goes constantly, as the phenomenon that is Mary Hazard attracts all comers.

This book only really scratches the surface of Mary’s sojourn from Ireland to England in the early 1950s. The most amazing part of the story is that she is still here to tell the tale, and is still a force to be reckoned with, after 62 years working in the NHS and 80 years of amazing, boisterous and, sometimes, tragic life.

Corinne Sweet