AHD                      The abortion that wasn't

In 1950 when I was working for Troughton & Young, a large electrical firm based in Knightsbridge, I was sent to St Vincent's Clinic in Nottingham Hill.  The clinic was something like the London Clinic, except that its fees were much lower.  You still had to be pretty comfortable for money to afford St Vincent's, but a lot of their clients moved from the London Clinic because they couldn't afford those fees.  To give a slight idea of the London Clinic's fees, an aspirin tablet put another shilling on your bill.  I'll leave the reader to find out what a shilling was worth in 1950, but it was a great deal more than it is today.

There was a small group of us sparks rewiring the nurse's home in Ladbroke Road, adjacent to the clinic.  I met my first wife (long may her soul rest  in Paradise) at the nurse's home.  The senior sister at the clinic was Sister Pauline.  This woman, I later deduced, would have put Maggie Thatcher in the shade; she was a real dragon.  She was tall for a woman and with her trumpet (the name given to the enormous head-dress that this Order wore) she looked as if she could outpace one of St George's type of dragons.

Some time after I married Jeanne (another person of immense conviction and personality) I tell a story elsewhere about Jeanne and her character  --  I am honoured to have known her), she told me a story of an operation she attended.  The Clinic had a theatre and all the paraphernalia to run it. Sister Pauline was a trained theatre-sister as well as a sister of charity.  My Jeanne was a staff nurse and often helped in the theatre.  A junior nurse acted as a skivvy as necessary.

The woman patient was booked into St Vincent's  for a D&C (dilation and curettage).  This operation is performed for a variety of reasons, and consists of scraping the wall of the uterus.  The patient was fully under the anaesthetic and the D&C process was ready to commence.  Jeanne told that she had the shock of her life and was not a little frightened at what happened next.

Sister Pauline slapped her hand hard down on the operating table with a thud, and in a loud voice, (and I have heard Sister Pauline speak loudly and brave men shiver) said:
"Mr" (whatever his name was) "Stop this operation or I call the Police."
Sister Pauline had worked out the the op was going to be a clandestine abortion.  In 1950 abortions were illegal and attracted a fair goal sentence.  I don't think that they were even legal to save the mother's life, although that would have been a substantial mitigation if the abortionist was charged and tried.  In some respects 1950 was mediaeval in its social legal framework compared with today.

Sister Pauline was nobody's fool.  The surgeon must have assumed that because the clinic was run by a Catholic Order, it would be naive enough for him to get away with the abortion.  Jeanne never told me if there were any later repercussions of the attempt.  In fact she may never have known, had there been.  But Jeanne did tell me that the woman was rather upset when she came round in bed later in the day.  She still had her baby.

Jeanne told me another story about the Clinic.  The cook had given her notice and the Clinic had advertised for a replacement.  One of the clients suggested to the Matron that they should employ a male chef as it would give the place much greater status.  The Matron was just as down to earth as Sister Pauline was "I wouldn't employ a man who had been playing with his penis one minute and then serving up my dinner the next!"  Never underestimate a sister of charity!

Whilst working at the Clinic, I stepped over a roll of lino and put my foot through the ceiling OVER SISTER PAULINE'S BED.  I went trembling to tell Sister Pauline of my accident.
"Did you hurt yourself, Colin?"
" No Sister"
"That's good, the ceiling will mend. I'll get Jeffery (the odd job man) to repair it, and I'll get one of the girls to clear up the mess."  And it was a mess!

I feel honoured to have known Sister Pauline.  I learned later that she was well known in medical circles having had several books on nursing published.  I am an agnostic but I do respect most of the Catholic church and its members.