Читать книгу At the Coalface: The memoir of a pit nurse - Veronica Clark, Joan Hart - Страница 11

I was a complete first and a bit of a curiosity at Brodsworth Colliery – a female nursing officer in charge of 3,000 men – but the National Coal Board was trying to improve its safety record after the pits had been nationalised nine years previously. Now that I’d been hired, the health of the Brodsworth miners was down to me. I’d work in a preventative role as well as being there to treat the men.

Before I’d arrived, the miners relied on a bloke called Bert, a tall, slim and authoritative man in his mid-forties. He’d been at the pit for donkeys’ years and was a trained first aider. He was also the man you went to in an emergency. It was 1956, and Bert was so trusted and highly respected that all the people in the village would call on him rather than use a doctor. To be honest, I didn’t blame them because what Bert didn’t know wasn’t really worth knowing. His office was an old wooden hut situated by the shaft side. The hut was cramped and dark and as far removed from sterile hospital wards as you could get. Nevertheless, Bert, who had a mop of thick, dark, curly hair, would expertly bandage and generally patch the men up in the dim light and dusty surroundings. If it was a serious injury then he’d pack them off to the hospital, or call for one of the Coal Board doctors, but Bert was always the miners’ first port of call in an emergency.

He was also very obstinate and viewed me, just 24 and a mere slip of a girl, with extreme suspicion. He resented the fact that I was heading up the brand new medical centre, because his male ego wouldn’t allow him to accept orders from a young lass. The centre was being built specially but he disliked the idea so much that he refused to come out of his hut even to take a look at it. I’m sure the curiosity must have killed him, but he was a stubborn old goat and he refused to budge an inch. Despite this, I looked up to Bert because he was so knowledgeable.

I’d been brought up in Woodlands, the village attached to Brodsworth Colliery, and my father – Harry Smith to everyone else – was a senior official there. Dad was respected, and everyone knew I was his eldest daughter. By this time, my brother Tony had started at Brodsworth as a trainee cadet, so the men called me either ‘Harry Smith’s eldest’ or ‘Tony Smith’s sister’. I was never called by my actual name, despite my protests. Sometimes the men couldn’t even be bothered to refer to me by the family name, and instead called me ‘the head girl from Woodlands school’. I’d come off the hospital wards and never done industrial nursing before, so I was also a little intimidated by the miners and my surroundings. The medical centre was still being built, so I got to choose the colour scheme.

‘I think I’d like a nice canary yellow,’ I said as I surveyed the plans. The man was horrified and his mouth fell open as though I’d asked him to paint it candy pink. To say the men on site were appalled by my choice of colour would be an understatement.

‘Yellow!’ one of the miners shrieked, shaking his head in dismay. ‘But we normally have navy blue on the walls.’

I turned to face him. I was only young and I knew I was a woman working in a man’s world, but I was also very determined.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘And navy blue is a horrible, dark colour. I need it to be light and welcoming, so I’d like it painting yellow, please.’

I nodded my head as though that was my final word on the matter. Despite many objections, my wish was eventually granted, much to Bert’s disapproval. I’d not consulted him, but I could just imagine him sitting over in his dreary dark wooden cabin, rolling his eyes in despair. As soon as the medical centre opened, I realised it was going to be hard to win the men over because, instead of coming to me, they continued to consult Bert. Now it was a battle of wills.

‘Have you heard? She’s only gone and painted it bloody yellow!’ one of the men grumbled as he passed by my window early one morning.

I was up and running, but with no patients to treat and yellow walls to boot, I knew I had my work cut out. The medical centre held all the latest equipment, including a state-of-the-art steriliser, but try as I might, I couldn’t get Bert or his team of first-aiders through the door. And then fate intervened. One day, I stretched over the autoclave – the device used to sterilise equipment to a very high temperature – when I caught my right arm against it. The burn was painful because it was deep and it had penetrated through several layers of skin. Also, because it was my right arm, it was impossible for me to dress with a bandage. With no one else to turn to, I walked across the pit yard towards Bert’s hut. I tapped lightly on the door. As he opened it, I could tell he was shocked to find me standing there. He also seemed a little suspicious, as though I was trying to trick him.

‘Sorry to bother you, Bert,’ I began, ‘but I wondered if you could take a look at my arm, please? I caught it on the autoclave. It’s really painful and it’s my right arm … I can’t dress it properly.’

I was so busy trying to explain that I hadn’t noticed that Bert had left the door ajar and had sat back down. I took it as a signal to go inside.

‘Tha needs to be more careful,’ he grunted as he pulled out a roll of bandage from a nearby drawer. He expertly dressed my wound as his dark curly hair flopped around his face, hiding his expression.

‘I’m really grateful, Bert.I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’

He looked up at me and nodded, but he was a hard man to read and I wondered if he thought I’d burned my arm on purpose. I hadn’t, of course, and it was painful all the same. I winced as he tied the bandage, and he nodded to indicate that he’d finished. I wasn’t quite sure what to do so I stood up and turned to leave. As I did, Bert spoke.

‘It’s a nasty wound, that is. Tha better come back tomorrow so I can change t’dressing.’

I turned and smiled gratefully.

‘Thanks, Bert. I really appreciate it.’ And I did. I also saw a chink of light. Maybe Bert wasn’t such a tough nut to crack after all.

The following day I went back to have my dressing changed, and the day after, until soon I’d visited Bert for the best part of the week. Early one morning, I was told an official would be visiting the medical centre. I asked Bert if he could come over to me instead, but he wasn’t keen. He’d already made it plain that he didn’t approve of me or my canary-yellow walls.

‘Please, Bert. I’ll get into trouble if I’m over here with you and not over there,’ I said, pointing at the medical centre. ‘It’ll only take a minute, and then you can leave.’

After much deliberation, Bert decided that he would indeed come over to dress my wound. I think a small part of him really wanted to see the inside of the centre, but his male ego wouldn’t let him cross the threshold without good reason. Of course, Bert changed my dressing to his usual high standard. As he packed up to leave, I took a chance.

‘While you’re here I may as well show you around.’

Bert sneered until I explained that I really wanted his opinion on the equipment I already had in there. It seemed to work, because moments later I was giving him a guided tour.

‘And this is the autoclave,’ I explained.

Bert tried to hide it but I could tell he was impressed. He liked the new medical centre, with its sterile environment and equipment; he just didn’t want to take orders from a girl. However, Bert’s resolve must have melted, because hours later he returned with his three Medical Room Attendants (MRAs).

‘And this is the steriliser, state of the art,’ he said, demonstrating it.

I’d used my charm and womanly wiles and, sure enough, I’d eventually won him over. Only six weeks after starting at Brodsworth, Bert and his team left the freezing-cold hut and moved into the medical centre. My team of one had expanded to a team of five overnight. Soon it became a little crowded with the extra bodies, but I didn’t mind because I loved the company and having Bert to call on whenever I needed advice. In return, the MRAs were so thrilled at having a sterile, warm and comfortable office to work in that they kept it absolutely spotless. In fact, they’d spend the entire week just mopping the floors until they were so clean that you could’ve eaten your dinner off them.

‘Again?’ I asked when I spotted one of them mopping the waiting-room floor for the third time that day.

He stood up, held his hands at the top of the mop and rested his chin down on them. ‘Can’t be too careful, Sister. Better to be safe than sorry.’

I stifled a giggle. The men certainly took pride in their work. Still, none of them accepted the fact that I was a married woman. Instead, they referred to me as either Sister or Sister Smith, using my maiden name. But it was better than ‘the head girl from Woodlands school’, so in many ways it was progress.

It was a good job I’d managed to get Bert on board, because only a few weeks later we were faced with a horrible situation when two workmen rushed into the medical centre with a man on a stretcher. They were still in shock as they explained how the contractor had fallen 30 feet from scaffolding against the water tower, where he was carrying out a repair. It hadn’t been a straightforward fall because he had caught his head on the sharp scaffold poles on the way down and had managed to scalp himself. The patient was disorientated and thrashing around. Taking his head in my hands, I held it tight against my chest to try to compress the wound because he was losing such a frightening amount of blood. But with my legs either side of the stretcher, holding him close, I was having trouble keeping him still. I looked up at Bert, who was busy searching for a compression bandage.

‘Please don’t leave me,’ I said, with fear trembling in my voice.

‘I’m going nowhere, lass,’ he replied as he held down the man.

The poor lad didn’t have a clue where he was and he was clearly in agony. The medical centre didn’t have Entonox (gas and air) back then, but we somehow managed to hold him for long enough to wrap a compression bandage around his scalp to try to stem the flow. Bert and I had decided that there wasn’t enough time to call a doctor – the patient would’ve died either from shock or loss of blood while we waited – so we loaded him into the navy-blue pit ambulance. By the time we arrived at the hospital, the surgeons were waiting. The relief medical attendant had rung through from the pit switchboard. I’d held the patient’s head together in my lap all the way, and I was soaked in blood. As they rushed him off to theatre, Bert turned and looked me up and down.

‘Tha looks like a horror movie, lass,’ he said bluntly.

‘Yes,’ I replied, glancing down at my uniform. ‘I think I need to get scrubbed up.’

‘Aye, tha does, but tha did a great job too, yer know. That lad would’ve died if it hadn’t have been for thee.’

It was high praise indeed. Afterwards, Bert had nothing but the utmost respect for me. We were in it together now. I’d proved I wasn’t just some silly little girl with canary-yellow walls and a romantic notion of caring for people; I was a qualified nurse, and someone who’d be there in times of crisis. Slowly, he began to trust me.

It was my dad who had first mentioned going underground into the pit. ‘It’ll help you to see where the miners work so you can get an idea of what they’re faced with every day.’

I agreed. I wanted to go down the pit for the very same reason. I spoke to the Safety Department officer, but he seemed a little reluctant.

‘Well, we’ve never really taken a woman down t’pit before, but if tha’s sure tha wants to,’ he said, scratching his head.

‘Oh, I do,’ I insisted. ‘It’d be great to see their working environment and what dangers they face on a day-to-day basis – it’d be invaluable.’

In the end, he couldn’t refuse, although the miners were taken aback when they saw me underground. I stood out like a sore thumb, even though I was dressed in a regulation boiler suit, because it was way too big for me. In fact, it was so big that I’d had to sew the hems of the legs up just so I could walk in it properly.

Although I felt a little out of my depth, I smiled as I was given a guided tour. The light from the lamp on my helmet danced against the pit walls, and in some quieter areas I heard, and was certain I saw, mice scuttling around in the shadows. It was noisy, humid and so dark that, without our headlamps, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. But I didn’t let my fear show because I wanted to prove I was as tough as the men. The pit continued to creak and drip as we ventured deeper. It was like being in the underbelly of a living, breathing creature, only one you couldn’t control.

‘Ay up, its Harry Smith’s eldest,’ one of the miners called as I passed by. The others stopped what they were doing, straightened up and scratched their heads in unison.

A woman. Down the pit?

They’d never seen the like before!

During the course of our visit, I checked the first-aid boxes to make sure they contained everything they needed.

‘Thanks for showing me around down there,’ I told the Safety Department officer as we finally stepped out of the cage onto the pit top.

He sized me up for a moment as though he didn’t quite know what to make of me.

‘No problem. No problem, lass.’

My second time underground followed a few months later. Dad agreed to take me down himself, so that I could do another general inspection and check the first-aid boxes. Again, it felt as though I was scrambling about in a cave. In some places it was as hot as hell, while in others it was humid and the condensation soaked into your skin.

‘I’m not sure what t’men will make of it, but as long astha does tha job tha won’t go far wrong,’ he said, giving me a pat on the back. He never said it directly, but I think he was proud that his daughter was becoming as tough as the miners she treated.

The third time, however, was a totally different matter. A call had come into the medical centre to say there’d been an emergency in the pit. A miner had trapped his leg between two tubs of coal and broken it. The deputy was a trained first aider, and although he’d bandaged and splinted the poor chap up I needed to examine the patient before they moved him to check he hadn’t done any further damage.

‘I’ll not be long,’ I told Bert, who agreed to staff the medical centre in case we had any more walking wounded through the door.

Once again, I pulled on my overalls, now more familiar to me than they had been before, and headed over towards the pit shaft and cage. One of the men was waiting to take me down.

‘Ready, Sister?’ he asked.

‘Ready,’ I said, nodding, as the cage descended into the dark bowels of the earth.

We located the man quickly. I gave him a thorough examination, checking him for spinal and head injuries in particular but, thankfully, apart from a fractured leg, he was fine.

‘He’s good to move,’ I told the deputy.

Four men lifted him up and loaded the stretcher on to the seat of a waiting paddy train. They placed him flat and perched themselves either side to hold him in position. The deputy gestured for me to board the train, which I did, travelling with the patient to the pit shaft. We brought him up to the surface where the pit ambulance was waiting to take us to Doncaster Royal Infirmary. After admitting the man to hospital, I was free to leave. There was no point in me hanging around, although a few people did a double take when they saw me coming in through the hospital doors dressed in pit boots and filthy overalls. But by now I was getting used to it.

‘I’m a nurse,’ I told one woman. She sniffed as I passed, blackened head to toe with coal dust. She shook her head as though she didn’t believe a word of it.

The miner eventually returned to work. I’m not sure how bad the fracture was so I don’t know if they put him in traction or just plastered his leg, but he was off work for a good three or four months.

A few weeks later, we received another call. A miner had suffered another leg injury, only this time it was a serious underground incident. The man had bored a hole in the coalface and had tried to fire it, using shot, which is candle-shaped and similar to a stick of dynamite. Normally it’d cause the roof to crack, loosening the coal and making it easier to extract. Only this time the shot had partially fired and ricocheted back towards the miner, who was crouched at what he thought was a safe distance away. The shot had then detonated fully next to his right leg, partially blowing the top part off above the knee.

I immediately telephoned Dr Creed, one of the Coal Board doctors based at Doncaster. The disordered blast had caused coal to fall in on the patient, so he’d been trapped underground with his leg hanging on by a thread. That’s when the full impact hit me – Dr Creed and I would have to travel into the pit to carry out an emergency amputation to free the man. Feeling sick with nerves, I grabbed the amputation kit and checked it over. It was pretty basic, containing artery forceps, a tourniquet, sterile saw and several sharp knives of different lengths. I knew Dr Creed was on his way with morphine, so I changed out of my nurse’s outfit and pulled on my boiler suit and pit boots.

‘Good luck,’ Bert called as I headed towards the door.

I nodded and left him in charge of the medical centre. By the time I’d reached the pit top, Dr Creed had pulled up in his car. I’d never been more relieved to see a doctor in my whole life. He’d already changed into his overalls, so we walked over towards the shaft side. Dr Creed was a lovely middle-aged man who was very experienced, but I could tell the thought of performing an amputation in the dirt, miles underground, concerned him too. Before we entered the cage, he turned to face me.

‘Are you nervous, Sister?’ he asked gently.

I was absolutely terrified – my fear betrayed by my hands, which were trembling at my side. I grabbed the handle of the amputation kit for courage.

‘Yes, I’m frightened to death,’ I admitted.

Dr Creed turned away and fumbled around inside his bag. Moments later he pulled something out – a silver hip flask. He unscrewed the top and held it out towards me.

‘Here, have a nip of this, Sister,’ he insisted, pushing the bottle into my hands. I looked up at him, wondering if it was a test.

Surely drinking on the job wasn’t allowed?

Then I thought of the poor man waiting for us, and the gruesome amputation. I grabbed the bottle and took a quick gulp. The brandy warmed my mouth and throat as I swallowed. I gave the hip flask back to Dr Creed, expecting him to replace the cap – only he didn’t. Instead, he held it aloft and took a quick swig too! He inhaled a huge breath of air, replaced the lid and turned to face me.

‘Better?’ he asked.

‘Better.’

And I felt it. We were just about to step into the cage when Bert came running over to find us. He’d received a call to say the miner had been freed and rescued from the rubble. His leg was barely attached but the first-aid team underground had tied a tourniquet around his thigh and strapped his legs together to keep the damaged leg stable. When the injured miner – a man called John – was brought back up to the surface, Dr Creed administered a maximum dose of morphine, and John was loaded by stretcher into the pit ambulance. I travelled with him to hospital, where I handed him over to the doctors who’d been waiting for his arrival. With nothing else to do, I travelled home, both physically and emotionally spent. I felt helpless and began to sob. I’d been taken on to care for these men but I wasn’t God and I couldn’t perform miracles.

‘It was just so awful,’ I wept. Peter wrapped his arms around me and tried his best to comfort me. ‘I just felt so helpless.’

I refused to shed a tear at work. Instead, I stored it all up inside so I could release it later at home where no one could see or hear me. I couldn’t let the men see me upset because I needed to be strong for them. I couldn’t let them see my tears because by now they trusted me to do the right thing, even when faced with a life-or-death situation. But the truth was that the responsibility often weighed me down.

John was eventually stabilised, and later that evening the hospital surgeons amputated his right leg. He was still a little woozy when I called to visit him in hospital the following morning, but he was also very accepting in spite of losing a limb.

‘I’ll be honest wi’ yer, I’d rather it hadn’t happened, Sister, but at least I’m alive, so I’ve that to be grateful for,’ he reasoned. His bravery made me want to let go of my resolve and cry.

It’d been a horrendous accident, made worse by the fact that John had initially been trapped underground, miles away from the nearest hospital. But that was the importance of my job. I was there to keep the men safe, and not only to try to help prevent accidents, but also to treat them accordingly should one occur. I was their first port of call, and together with Bert we had a responsibility to our men. There was such camaraderie among the miners that within 24 hours of John’s accident the afternoon shift had collected enough money for a state-of-the-art wheelchair. They’d collected even more to pay his wife’s wages so she could stay with him at his hospital bedside. I loved that about working at a pit – the miners were a family. The men looked out for one another in a way that most people would for their own blood. During my time as a pit nurse I became stronger because I realised I’d always have that same support too.

The automation of the pits made the mines more productive than with a man armed with just a pick and shovel. The latest machinery brought with it fewer accidents, but more danger and risk of amputation. After John’s accident, I tended to men who’d had their fingers ripped off. At first, I found it difficult because the patients would be filthy from working underground when they came to see me – hardly perfect conditions when trying to keep infection at bay. I knew I always had Bert, and a Coal Board doctor was only a phone call away, but ultimately I had to learn to trust my judgement and make the right decision.

At first I was over-cautious. If a man had a foreign object in his eye, I’d send him to hospital. Chest pains were another direct route and a ride in the pit ambulance to A&E. You could never tell if a pain in the chest was the start of a heart attack or something less sinister. I didn’t take any chances and packed them off all the same. However, there were a few miners who knew the system and tried to play me like a fiddle. Doncaster Rovers were playing a vital home game when I received a call an hour or so before kick-off, to say a man was being carried to the medical centre on a stretcher. He’d complained of severe stomach pains, and at first I’d been a little concerned. However, my father, who was the afternoon gaffer, knew the miner well. He also knew that he was an avid fan who became ill every time Rovers played at home.

‘Watch him, Joan. He’s trying to pull t’wool over yer eyes to get off work so he can go and watch t’game. He’s known for it – we all call him Sick Note.’

Sure enough, I was presented with a man who had absolutely nothing wrong with him other than a burning desire to watch his home team.

‘Where does it hurt?’ I asked as I proceeded to examine his stomach. I placed my hands flat against it, feeling for tenseness. Patients with severe stomach pains, as he professed to have, automatically tense their muscles because the last thing they want is to be examined. His stomach was soft and relaxed. I smelt a rat. The more I examined him, the more the pain seemed to move around and change direction.

‘No, Nurse, it’s more over this side,’ he wailed dramatically.

‘That’s funny. I thought you said it was over there a minute ago.’

The man stopped his crying and looked directly at me.

‘It is, I mean, it’s over there as well,’ he said, resuming his play-acting. ‘Oooh, it hurts so much, I think I need to go home to me bed.’

I knew I was being taken for a fool so I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine, or more directly, some of my own.

‘Here,’ I said, spooning out a foul concoction – a special mixture of peppermint, sal volatile (smelling salts) and kaolin. It was one I used specially on time-wasters.

The medicine was thick and white, and it tasted disgusting. I knew it wouldn’t do him any harm, only make him feel a little queasy. If he hadn’t felt sick before, he certainly would now. It seemed to do the trick because he never came to see me with stomach pains ever again.

Dad was a great source of information whenever I was in doubt. I knew I was lucky to have him there. My father was wise, firm – but fair – and he didn’t suffer fools gladly. Also, he’d never, ever ask his men to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. The miners knew this, so they respected him, and in turn they came to respect me.

One day, my father was complaining he couldn’t hear very well.

‘Must be old age,’ he grumbled, putting his index finger inside his ear, ringing it around in frustration.

‘Come over to the medical centre so I can have a proper look,’ I shouted back at him. It was true; he’d slowly become as deaf as a post.

Once inside the medical centre, I took out my auroscope – I knew what this was by now after my embarrassing newspaper débâcle – and had a proper look. I immediately knew what was wrong.

‘You’re not going deaf, Dad. It’s your ears – they’re full of coal dust. You just need to have them syringed.’

But the thought of me sticking a big needle into his ears made him reel back in his chair.

‘Whaaaat?’

I stifled a giggle.

‘Don’t worry. It’s not as painful as it sounds. I just need to pop some olive oil inside your ears for a week, and when you come back I’ll syringe it out.’

‘Will it help with my hearing?’ he asked dubiously.

‘Absolutely. When I’m done, you’ll have ears like a bat!’ I grinned, before grabbing a small bottle of olive oil and some pads of cotton wool to start the procedure.

Sure enough, he was back in the chair a week later as I syringed the muck from his ears. As soon as I’d finished a wide smile broke across his face.

‘Bluddy ’ell, Joan, it’s a miracle! I can hear everything. Tha’ sounds as clear as a bell!’

I tried not to laugh. Secretly, I was delighted my father had allowed me to treat him. But not as delighted as he’d been, because he told everyone about me and my miracle cure for deafness. At first the men had been suspicious of me and my fancy new ways, but now my father was living proof that I knew exactly what I was doing. I could and would work wonders for them too. Soon I had a queue of men at my door, all waiting for my ‘miracle treatment’.

‘I’d like you all to go and see your doctor first, get him to check your ears, ask for a note and then come back to see me.’

I needed a doctor to check the men first to ensure that they didn’t have any underlying conditions. Days later, hordes of big burly miners dropped in one by one clutching their consent forms. A week later, when the first batch of men had been successfully syringed, they told their colleagues, and so word began to spread. One day, I arrived at the medical centre to find more than twenty miners queued up outside the door. Soon there was so much demand that I had to hold a special Saturday clinic to keep up with it. I didn’t mind coming in for a few hours on my day off. The fact that I was slowly winning the trust of the men was more important to me. But it wasn’t just ears I treated. One day, I was syringing a man’s ears when he mentioned that he also had a bad back.