Part 4 - Big Events & Many Changes - 1985 - 1986

Part 4

A BIG POST

Some Serious Life Events 
& 
Many Many Changes

1985-1986

This is the longest of my Life Diary posts / chapters.
This was a complex time...
This was a Time Beyond...
2 Years
that
 Changed my World
Forever

The next 2 years were to be some of the busiest of my life. 

This Post will not be easy reading - it was a difficult and hectic time....

 A Career in Nursing - Where Next?

Inevitably I was ambitious and although I loved my time on David Ferrier Ward I needed to move on to new horizons and experiences in my Nursing Career. 

I had a decision to make - as I had two pathways I wanted to follow. I had loved my time as a student nurse in Kings Casualty Department and had a real interest in following that as a potential career. However I also had a real interest and fascination in Intensive Care Nursing as a career. As a student nurse I had stared with wonder through the swing doors of Kings Intensive Care at the beds surrounded by machinery and a tangle of tubes, all centered on the person in the bed fighting for their life.  

I went too see Miss Gibbs, a mild mannered and lovely Nursing Officer who covered David Ferrier Ward. She listened patiently and considered carefully. "David, Kings A&E is unique - you will be hard pressed to find other A&Es that will give you the same experience. But Intensive Care is an emergent nursing science. As an Intensive Care nurse you will go wherever you want." 

And with these words of wisdom the die was cast - and I successfully applied for a Staff Nurse post in Kings College Hospital Intensive Care Unit.

KCH ITU - 8 beds open to Cardio-Thoracic Surgery and all general Trauma. It was to be an imposing challenge. I would move from being an experience Neuro Medical Staff Nurse to a Novice ITU Nurse. 

I remember my first handover in the ITU office - it was gibberish - I hardly understood a word of it - there was a whole new complex technical vocabulary, a new language and skills set to be learnt. And thus I learnt a life lesson - no matter how experienced you think you may be - being a novice again is always only just around the next corner... It was a humbling and necessary experience. I discovered that you are never too experienced, senior, clever or learned - to learn something new.....

The World - 1985 - 1986 

On the wider world stage our personal lives were being shaped by a time of great change and innovation. It was 1985 and the first British mobile phone call was made. 

A debate in the House of Lords was televised for the first time. 

And the infamous Miners’ strike ended bitterly after one year of conflict and chaos - Thatcher gloating in her false victory.  

And in July 1985 there was a world changing event - the Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia raise over £50m for famine relief in Ethiopia. No one had ever seen anything like this - a global event personified and electrified by Queens iconic set... 

LIVE AID - QUEEN

Ironically I was on the day of Live Aid on night duty in ITU - but we captured the event on our treasured and 1st ever Video Tape recorder (used primarily to entertain Thomas with our 1st ever Video Tape - Thomas the Tank Engine!!). 

The strange new world of ITU

ITU was another new beginning, a new language, new challenges and a new type of patients and their families....... There were to be new experiences that would shape me. 

Inevitably I did Nights in ITU, long dark, nights full of strange experiences. A young woman who set herself on fire by covering herself with petrol. Inevitably she died. Then there was a baby assaulted by its father, swung by its legs and its head crashed into a wall. It too died - and so did a little bit of me.... I learnt - and the lessons were hard and sometimes painful.  

A Policeman, George Hammond 1985, stabbed in a local shop. George suffered cardiac arrest a dozen times in the 1st 24 hours in ITU - and they replaced his circulating blood volume over and over. There were Police queued  up outside ITU donating blood. George would survive, despite multiple organ failure and unspeakable personal suffering. It was a privilege to care for him. It was 12 years later that he would eventually die from the result of his horrendous injuries.  

------------

MOMENTOUS FAMILY EVENTS

My Parents deteriorating health was a significant issue,. My Sister Sue arranged for them to move to sheltered accommodation in a bungalow in Ferryside in Carmarthen. Moving my parents to Wales was a huge endeavor, but one we achieved in eventuality with herculean effort. 

The Death of Sue Barton

Sue - my sister - 4 years older than me. She lived in sleepy village of Ferryside in Carmarthen with her husband Charles. Their little house on the edge of the startling beautiful estuary. 

Sue - my soul mate, my friend, my protector. She had been my everything. She read to me the Narnia books, over and over, and held me close and told my parents off when their arguments upset me. 

Sue - my defender and guardian, my role model and closest friend, my mentor.

Poor Sue - had been ill, suffering from a blood disorder at the age of 32 years - pre-leukemic.

I was in my my maisonette in Love Walk, it was 1985. Tom was toddling around the house. The phone went - Sue had been in an accident, she had accidentally fallen from a train in Carmarthen, she was critically ill. 

A night of sleeplessness - and in the morning I was on a train from Paddington to Swansea. Sue was critically ill in Morriston Hospital ITU in Swansea. 

I arrived in ITU. She was Intubated and ventilated, on Life Support. a serious Head Injury. I have an overwhelming sense of "Nothing" - I am "Blank".

The days passed, I was staying with my parents in Ferryside. I wept silently and alone  as I walked through the village.

And then a day. I sat by her hospital bed. I was taken aside by the medical and nursing team. Sue was dead.

Again I sat by her bed - the ventilator, pumps and monitor were all turned off - a nurse sat with me - there was eventual stillness , her heart stopped - her eyes opened, a death reflex - but she was not there. Sue passes.....    

I returned to Ferryside and tell my parents of their daughters death. My father, himself already frail beyond measure, said "she beat me to it...."

The Death of my Father

Within months of his daughters death my fathers health further deteriorated. A once intelligent and proud man, his final years had been blighted by Parkinson's Disease and Dementia. He slowly slipped into frailty and confusion, losing his dignity to incontinence and confusion.  

It was my abiding joy that he had the chance to meet his Grandson Tom. Even in his confusion he cooed with pleasure over little TommyB (as he would be later called in life). I might of known that Tommy would become a Nurse late in life, when saw him toddle over to his Granddad with a tissue to wipe the saliva dripping uncontrollably from his mouth. 

My poor Father became increasingly frail - he was confused beyond measure and was physically emaciated. He was admitted to the Priory Elderly Care Hospital in Carmarthen. The day came. My Mother was with me, as was Janet. He passed away with his family at his side. 

We went to leave, and my Mother clasped at my arm. "I want to see him, one last time, I have been seeing him all my life." So we saw him one last last time - she wept, and kissed his cold face, holding his cold hand.

The Christmas of 1985 was the last I was to spend with my Mother. We brought her from her little bungalow in Ferryside to our South London maisonette. It was a difficult time, she was ill, and she would not see another Christmas.

We Move to Wales

There we were with our little boy, living in a London ghetto. We talked, and talked, and planned.. A move to Wales was planned. To assure a job in Wales I needed to be ITU trained - the then famed English National Board ITU course (ENB 100). A 6 month intense training programme based in KCH ITU - I applied and started in 1985 - despite my previous assertion to never be a student again. Six moths later I passed!

My my what planning we did. And eventually there came a day that we packed up our home, and set off in a battered old Rover to Wales. Down the M4 we took a one way trip to a new life with our little boy Tom, leaving London only to ever return latter as visitors and tourists. We moved into a rather shabby flat in Carmarthen. And two days later I started as a Staff Nurse in Glangwilli District General Hospital as a Staff Nurse. 

A BRAVE NEW WORLD
For Thomas David Barton (and Family)

We were now in Wales, working as Nurses. We bought our 1st house, 19 Bryn Gorwel. Thomas was growing and going to nursery. Despite my ongoing aversion to education I started a Diploma in Nursing at Swansea College of Further Education. Life was moving on and changing.

The Death of my Mother would mark a transition from the past to the future. Her passing cut the final ties with a time gone by, from a childhood and young life, to an adult life as a professional and parent.  

She had suffered from Bowel Cancer for several years and had surgery in London with the subsequent formation of a colostomy. There had also been treatment with radiotherapy. 

But by 1986 my poor Mother had carcinomatosis, multiple metastasis, she was riddled. On the day of her death, just 2 weeks before Xmas 1986, I sat at her bedside as she slipped away. Janet was not with me, she was at Toms 1st Xmas concert, a decision we both felt that my mother would have approved of. 

It was a few days later, on a dark wintery evening, that I held Tom in my arms in our dark dark garden. Tom - "Where's Granny". Me "She has gone to heaven, in the sky", Tom - Looking at the night Sky - "Will Granny Come Out?"

THE END OF A NEW BEGINNING .....

TIME TO MOVE ON....... 

Part 4 - David Ferrier Ward KCH - 1983-1984

Part 4
David Ferrier Ward
Kings College Hospital

1983-1984

It was the time of the great Miners Strike. 
The then Conservative Government was led by Margaret Thatcher, and the conflict between them and the countries Miners erupted on our Televisions nightly. There were images of mounted riot police charging down the massed ranks of striking miners, this setting the tone for the time. When fighting at Orgreave Colliery between police and striking miners it left 64 injured, and the country was shocked and bemused at the Governments bullying tactics.  

It was a time of change, challenge, innovation and deprivation.

The Thames Barrier was opened by HM The Queen. A massive and extraordinary engineering feat by any standard.

In contrast the IRA attempted to assassinate the British Cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing gave the world a blueprint precursor to modern Terrorism.

The much loved and so familiar English One Pound Note was withdrawn after 150 years in circulation.

British Telecom shares went on sale, reflecting the ethos of a Conservative Government and its capitalistic philosophy .

In contrast the Band Aid charity single went on sale- and we all contemplated the notion of "Feeding the World...."

And of course the HIV virus was beginning to take its ghastly toll.

---------------------------

And I was a Staff Nurse on a Neuro Medical Ward in one of the most famous Hospitals in the country, if not the world. And I was loving it... 

DAVID FERRIER WARD
KINGS COLLEGE HOSPITAL

Sir David Ferrier (FRS) (13 January 1843 – 19 March 1928) was a pioneering Scottish neurologist and psychologist. His name adorned the entrance of the 2nd floor Race Track ward in the new ward block that bordered Denmark Hill. 

A "Race Track" was so named because the layout, main corridor, circled the floor whole of the 2nd floor. The modern 4 bedded areas were situated on the outer side of the circular corridor - windows looking outward over Ruskin Park and Kings itself. On the inside of the "track" were utility rooms, sluice, store rooms, Nurses Station and offices.  It was a wonderful place to have a first "Staff Nurse" post - a wonderful young innovative Sister and a strong team. I was privilege to be there.

And then there were the patients! Wonderful diverse patients with complex problems to challenge a young newly qualified nurse. David Ferrier Ward was a tertiary referral unit, this meaning that it was the final hope for many patients who where sent from around the country when all else had failed elsewhere. Patients with uncontrolled Epilepsy was an example of this - when Fit control failed they would be sent to David Ferrier Ward.     

"Fitters" - not now or then a politically correct term for a Ward full of patients with Epilepsy - but it was a fact that on David Ferrier we had a lot of "Fitters". And we were used to dealing with and managing patients having fits of all types. However and Epileptic fit can be very alarming for someone who had never seen one before. Suddenly seeing a patient in the bed next to you thrashing uncontrollably can be a terrifying experience. But the David Ferrier team took it all in our stride, managing the fitting patient until recovered and casting assurance to other patients.   

I was so proud of being a Kings Staff Nurse. There was an overwhelmingly sense of positive professional responsibility. I walked into the Ward each day with pride, and left it each day with no less pride. I was on the "Off Duty" as part of a team of Registered Nurses. These were my colleagues, my friends, and I loved being a part of that extraordinary team. We worked together, cohesively, with the intent of helping and caring for our patients. I had never felt do fulfilled. 

And soon I found myself being "In Charge". Taking responsibility for a whole team of Nurses, allocating them their work, and running a major Hospital Ward. It was such a wonderful experience. And I had so much to learn. Dealing with tragedy, sadness, grief, pain, conflict and aggression. These emotions, experiences, became my daily work, my routine. And I loved it - I lived and breathed it. I walked tall and proud at being a David Ferrier, Kings Nurse.   

Hand Over - that seminal ritual of the Nurse routine. Where one shift "Hands Over" to the next, passing on their patients daily experience, their care, their daily and prospective needs, problems and interventions.  I was so proud to lead at Hand Over. Looking back it amazes me how hospital and culture has changed. We all sat in Hand Over - with a Cup of Tea and a Cigarette. Smoking in Sisters Office was normal....

Janet and I were living in our lovely brand new maisonette in Love Walk.  We indulged in our 1st washing machine - and Tom enjoyed crashing into my legs in his baby walker as I lay on the floor plumbing it in in our new kitchen. We also treated ourselves with a visit to the Habitat Store in Croydon and bought our first settee. 

Love Walk - Literally 5 minutes walk from the main entrance to Kings it was the perfect place for us. A new kitchen and sitting room on the downstairs and a main bedroom, small bedroom and bathroom on the upstairs. Our front door was on the 1st floor of the new building just off Denmark Hill. 

And as for Thomas Christopher - he was growing and flourishing. But dear lord he was hard work! Not a natural sleeper he had us up at all times of day and night regardless of our respective Off Duty or Shift patterns. Up at 5 am with a restless bored toddler resulted in me buying my 1st Video Tape player  (a Hitachi) at the astronomical price or £300. 

And I buy my 1st ever Video Tape??? You may have guessed - "Thomas the Tank Engine". 

Many an early morning was given over to me dozing on the settee with Tom glued to Thomas the Tank...... And Tom was a busy fussy little boy - our Xmas Tree had to be a miniature on a shelf out of reach of curious chubby little hands....

We were bone weary. But he was so lovely - a fussy little toddler who loved everthing as long as it was well ordered and in straight lines. 32 years later I would smile when Tom's son Dafydd would busily line toys cars up along my living room floor in Wales - some of them the very same that Tom had played so particularly with 3 decades earlier.....

To accommodate little Thomas we had to make decisions about our careers. It was agreed that I would take the full time employment route and Janet would take the part time flexible employment route.  Working for one of the 1st Nurse Agencies, "London Provincial", Janet worked flexible shifts across Kings, opposite to my Off Duty. She worked everywhere, Todd Ward (Liver failure & transplant), through to general medicine and surgery. We were Ships in the Night, Tom would be handed over as one parent finished work and the other started their clinical shift. 
   
Long Walks - when Jan was working I would walk for hours across South London - pushing my little son in his buggy. From Peckham to Brixton, long slow walks through the endless Parks that were scattered everywhere, a part of the geography of the city. We shopped in Peckham, bags hanging off the the back of the buggy as we strolled home. Ohh life was sooo busy.... 

The Off Duty structured our daily routine. Late's, Early's, and of course the dreaded Night Shifts. 8 Nights "on" only compensated by 7 nights "off". NIGHTS - the shift stretched interminably, the moment just before the dawn when your whole body rebelled and asked to go to sleep. And then I would go home, and sleep fitfully, aware always of the little boy running around the house. Ohh we were sooo tired....  

Nights - a special Nursing experience. So busy, and then so quiet, and then so busy. On David Ferrier you arrived to a turmoil of "settling" the Ward for the night. The late drug round, patients to bed, and the lights out.... Then the long night stretched ahead in the semi gloom of the night lights, snoring from the sidewards, occasional bedpans in the twilight. You could hear the Ward, it breathed with a life of its own as its precious cargo of ill patients slumbered restlessly through the long semi darkness of the night. 

Gladys was an elderly patient, and she could never sleep properly at night. So Gladys would  knit! Through the long nights on David Ferrier the lamp over Gladys's bed was an oasis of light in an otherwise dark ward. And she clicked away with her needles creating all manner of woollen garments. I would chat for hours with Gladys, listening to stories of her long and colourful life. To this day I treasure the little red woolly Cardigan that she lovingly knitted for Thomas.

And then there was Norma. A pretty woman, a University Lecturer with progressive Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Norma's MS had deteriorated rapidly from her initial diagnosis, and at the time I cared for she had been reduced from an articulate academic to an utterly dependent  person who was doubly incontinent and unable to speak. Norma could only call out her distress to us by loud incoherent shouts. On nights Norma would moan in the dark. Her plight "got to me". I find it difficult to countenance that someone of my own age was suffering so..... I can hear to this to this day her calls in the darkness of the night..... Norma taught me that sometimes there is no simple answer.....

And then there came 5 am - just before the Ward was expected to wake. There was an experience, an indescribable  sensation, of total exhaustion. But despite that, the ward DID wake up, to another day..... 

8 Nights on followed by 7 off. It was a a physical and mental marathon. By the morning of the 8th and last night the exhaustion was overwhelming, palpable. I would claw my way into bed and blissful sleep would wash over me seconds.  Downstairs Jan and little Tom would be starting their day. 

Let me tell you of 'Rose' and Tom. Rose was a garrulous cross elderly South London woman. She was old, in hospital, and thoroughly pissed  off. She had no close family who could visit her. As far as Rose was concerned life was thoroughly miserable, the nurses were all bitches (me included) and quite frankly the sooner she died the better. She delighted in biting and pinching us as we attempted any form of basic care or hygiene. Even offering a cup of tea would result in a baleful stare and retort of "Fuck Off" in a glorious South London lilt.  I remember helping Rose into a warm bath with one of my female colleagues when she famously immersed under the water inn an attempt to drown herself!

And then one day Jan came over to the Ward with little Thomas - handing him over to me as she set off for a late. Tom, nearly 2 years old. Toddling and endearing. A ready smile, and the beginnings of speech.  I took him on a tour of the ward to meet my patients. As I entered the 4 bedder where Rose was, she saw my in my white tunic and scowled. Then she saw Tom, his little chubby hand in mine as he toddled next to me. He saw her in her bed, waved a chubby hand and yelled "HI". Rose's face burst into the most wonderful sunshine smile I have ever seen, and waved back. Tom trotted over to her and without prompting held her hand. Rose was entranced, captivated, " Oh ain't he fucking lovely".  From that day on Tom visited Rose on a regular basis, they became good friends, and I swear he brought a ray of sunshine into the last days of her life. When Rose passed Tom missed his visits to David Ferrier to see the nice old lady.....

At this time my Mother and Father where experiencing serious health problems. My Mother was treated for bowel cancer and had a colostomy formed. She `was really quiet frail. My Father was diagnosed with Parkinsons disease, with associated dementia. He retired due to ill health and they found themselves leaving the luxury of the Berkeley Square Penthouse and moving to a small council flat in the Golden Lane Estate in the City.

I remember well travelling on the Tubes with little Thomas in tow to see them, and my Mothers beaming smile on seeing the little grandson that she so adored. But they were not there long, as my Sister arranged for them to move to a small council Bungalow in Ferryside, a far better environment as both their health continued to deteriorate. 

Jan and `I spend much time considering our future, and planning for our future. We spend hours in Ruskin Park, a green oasis behind Kings, sitting at the Bandstand and reviewing our options. Whilst we do this little Tom plays on on the green lawns of the park.

Moving to Wales is a major part of our thinking. Another and more pressing part of the Jan and Dave Plan is:

MARRIAGE

On the 16th June 1984 Janet and I married at Camberwell Registry office. It was a simple but lovely moment observed by so many of those who loved us. 

Our Honeymoon - a day in London Zoo with little Thomas.

IT WAS THE END OF THE BEGINNING.

Part 3 - The New Nightingale Chronicles - 1980 - 1983

NEW NIGHTINGALES - THE CHRONICLES

The Chronicles - PART 3 of The Life Diaries

Author and Copyright T.D.Barton

Bartontd1@gmail.com
or
Bartontd1@yahoo.co.uk

NO MATERIAL OR CONTENT FROM NEW NIGHTINGALES MAY BE USED OR REPRODUCED ELSEWHERE WITHOUT THE EXPRESSED PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

In the 19^th century Florence Nightingale wrote extensively on the Art and Science of Nursing.

Her vision gave rise to today’s Nursing profession.

‘New Nightingales’ is the life story of two Nurses a century after Florence Nightingale.

"Breathe, breathe in the air

Don't be afraid to care"

"All you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be"

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon – 1973

All events described in these books are based on the actual life experiences
of 
Robert and Jane Gordon (Pseudonyms)

The characters described in these books are drawn from several sources.

All names have been changed. Any similarities with persons live or deceased is coincidental.

These books are dedicated to the ‘Brockley Bums’

May their spirit spring eternal in the hearts of Student and Qualified Nurses everywhere

FORWARD

New Nightingales describes the lives and experiences of two young people who were Student Nurses, and then Qualified Nurses, through the 1980s and beyond, spending thirty years as practising Nurses.  The books and chapters follow in instalments, telling the story of the two Student Nurses through their early formative training years, and then through their years a qualified professional Nurses.  They tell the stories of the many varied and unforgettable encounters they had with other Nurses, with Doctors, and with patients in Hospitals, in Wards, and in Clinics and in the Community.  New Nightingales recounts the very personal events that shaped them as people.  

Chapter One (Part One) - THE STUDENT NURSES OF KINGS COLLEGE HOSPITAL

(New Nightingales - Don’t be afraid to care)

Chapter One (Part Two) - THE STUDENT NURSES OF KINGS COLLEGE HOSPITAL (New Nightingales - Don’t be afraid to care)

Chapter Two - NORMANBY COLLEGE OF NURSING INTRODUCTORY BLOCK (Making beds and losing teapots)

Chapter Three - THE FIRST DAYS - BECOMING A STUDENT NURSE (Blondes, bedpan washers and new beginnings)

Chapter Four - SAMBROOKE WARD (Early Duties and Romantic Difficulties)

Chapter Five - BRUNSWICK WARD - St. GILES HOSPITAL (Girlfriends, a Nursing Officer and a Ghost)

Chapter Six - ELDERLY CARE - St. FRANCIS HOSPITAL (Hangovers, the Front Line, and Old Soldiers)

Chapter Seven - THE BELGRAVE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL (Holmedene's Golden Age)

Chapter Eight - MENTAL HEALTH - THE MAUDSLEY HOSPITAL (A New Home and Chillies on Toast)

Chapter Nine - MATERNITY – KINGS COLLEGE HOSPITAL (Off Duty, Christmas, Porters, Babies, and Chicken Pox)

Chapter Ten - OPERATING THEATRES – KINGS COLLEGE HOSPITAL (Everything Green, Wars, Bikes and Good Food)

Chapter Eleven - VICTORIA & ALBERT WARD And TRUNDLE & WADDINGTON WARD - KINGS COLLEGE HOSPITAL (Examinations, another new home, night duty and holidays)

Chapter Twelve - ACCIDENT & EMERGENCY - KINGS COLLEGE HOSPITAL (AIDS, a Flashing Boob Tube, Violence, the Spike and a baby)

Chapter Thirteen – WALES & CRITICAL CARE – KINGS COLLEGE HOSPITAL (More New Beginnings, Reflections and Revelations)

Chapter Fourteen - BROWN WARD & RUSKIN WARD - DULWICH HOSPITAL (Sausages, Commodes, and Harsh Lessons)

Chapter Fifteen - LONSDALE WARD – KINGS COLLEGE HOSPITAL - THE SPECIAL CLINIC & COMMUNITY NURSING (Every step you take, we’ll be watching you)

Chapter Sixteen - DAVID FERRIER WARD – KINGS COLLEGE HOSPITAL (A Boy, an Examination and Great Expectations)

ChapterSeventeen - Part 1 - ON BECOMING A STAFF NURSE (Their Life in Your Hands - Breathe in the Air)

ChapterSeventeen - Part 2 - Afterthought - 2010 ON BECOMING A STAFF NURSE (Their Life in Your Hands - Breathe in the Air)