Nurse Training

A Memory of Blackburn.

I started my SRN training in 1973. In those days the Nurses' Home still exsisted but the view was obscured by the more recent additional buildings to the Infirmary, which included the Education Centre. However the Home was still well used. Some nurses still 'lived in' in this building but we all used the building too. We all had lockers in a room in the basement there. When we went on duty we kept our gaberdines and bags in our lockers where we also stored our clean uniform. We had to wear clean uniforms every day so dirty laundry was put into laundry bags, also kept in the locker and sent off to the laundry on our given laundry day. When we worked on night duty, which was quite often then, we had to congregate in the Sitting Room and be told which ward we were to work on. In the main corridor down near our locker room there were information boards where we found the 'Change Lists'. These lists told us when we were to change to another ward. We usually worked for about eight weeks on a ward then would move to a different ward and specialty to gain new experience. Also our 'Block' exam results were posted here too. No secrets!
To enter the building you could either use its main front door or go through one of the infirmary corridors. I usually went through the main door as it was an additional walk to go through the A&E entrance and round the infirmary corridors. One day the heavens opened shortly after I had left home to walk to work. There was nowhere to shelter so I just walked as quickly as I could. On reaching the small driveway to the main doors a porter told me that I couldn't use that entrance as there was a huge puddle infront of the doors. I ignored him and waded through it. I was already soaked and couldn't have got any wetter than I already was. He must have thought I was crackers. I was so wet that even my dress under the gaberdine was soaked. When I put my apron on it stuck to the wet dress. When I arrived on 'my' ward I was sent to the sewing room for another dress and apron. I was also lent a pair of shoes by someone but they were two sizes too big! All in a day's work as they say!
Sadly the Nurse's Home was demolished way back in early 1980 to make way for the then new A&E department. Even sadder is that the whole Infirmary complex has recently been demolished.