BAN        Some stories that came from my first, and dearly beloved, first wife

To begin with I must declare the situation regarding my first wife.  I married her in a Catholic church at Hampton on Thames.  In 1951 the church service was all in Latin.  I used to tease Jeanne about this saying that I couldn't have been legally married as the service was in a foreign language.  Her retort was always "You signed the register, and that's good enough for me" .

Jeanne was a devout Catholic but never attempted to convert me.  I am a agnostic in believing that mankind will never fully understand the Universe.  And, as for the teachings of, say Christianity, they are riddled with inconsistencies.  But that does not mean that I despise the Roman Church.  It has great merits.

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St Vincent's Clinic in 1950           

 I worked as an electrician for a large London Contractor (Troughton & Young) in the 1950s.  They did quite a bit of work for the Order of St Vincent de Paul.  Although a French order they had their English headquarters in Victoria in London.  St Vincent’s had a number of establishments all over the country.  It was the one in Sheffield that Jeanne (my first wife) first knew of them.  They were the carers for her elder sister who had a fall as young teenager and became epileptic, and never left an institution for the rest of her days.  When she died a year ago she was in a Sheffield Council care home.

Jeanne was born in Clowne in Derbyshire and told me that she decided as a schoolgirl she wasn’t going to be like all the other girls in her class, and marry a pit worker and have a string of kids.  She had higher aims in her life despite her father being a pit labourer. 

I was a class above her father in that I was a tradesman whereas he was only a labourer.  Jeanne became a class above me by mixing with upper middle class people at St Vincent’s.  I am honoured that Jeanne chose me as she could have had the pick of a lot more wealthy fellows during her time at Notting Hill, even some with titles.  That inner London suburb was officially North Kensington.  It is now known for its black community, but in Victoria times was really up-market.

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But to the stories of St Vincent’s.  When I met Jeanne at Notting Hill she was a staff nurse at the St Vincent’s Clinic.  It was a pricey place but not nearly as expensive as the London Clinic, which in 1950 put a shilling on your bill for an aspirin tablet.  (That was before paracetamol arrived)  A lot of patients transferred themselves from the London Clinic to St Vincent's because they simply could not afford London Clinic prices.  And one of those people was the well-known Methodist Preacher Dr Donald Soper.  (He was very well known because of his regular sessions at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park.  Donald Soper later became Lord of Soper, so you can judge his status.  His name was a common household name in the UK in the 1950s.  Jeanne nursed him at the clinic on one occasion.  She told me he was as mild a character in the hospital cot as he was in the pulpit   She also nursed a lot of other showbiz household names during her time at Notting Hill.  Some of them would give the girls complementary tickets to the show where they were appearing.  There's another story there.

But the story that I liked the best about St Vincent's, was of a socialite who came in to the clinic for a D&C.  Patients always brought their own surgeon and anesthetist as the clinic only provided nursing and theatre facilities.  This woman was no exception.

 A D&C is a scraping of the womb to remove odd growths that are not necessarily malignant.  I expect it is the same in the USA and the rest of Europe as it is here.   In the theatre there was the senior sister, Sister Pauline.  She was a real dragon, and she practically ran the place under the nominal leadership of Sister Mary, the matron.  Sister Pauline was a sister of charity, as well as being trained to the level of a nursing sister.  When not in a nursing mode the nun’s dress consisted of a normal type of habit together with “the trumpet”.  That was a very striking piece of headgear that was frightening to most children.  It had a huge starched folded piece of linen that protruded forward and up just like a rhino horn.

The staff in the theatre consisted of Sister Pauline (the boss), Jeanne (the the staff nurse), a junior nurse to clean up the mess.  And, of course, the anesthetist and the surgeon.  Jeanne never told me the names of the two men; and she may not have even have known their names.

The patient had been anesthetized and action was about to commence.  Jeanne told me that she had the shock of her life when Sister Pauline suddenly slammed her hand down very hard on the table and in a very loud voice almost shouting:

“Mr xxxxx, stop this operation or I will call the police”.

Sister P had spotted that the D&C was actually going to be an early abortion.

I have a very high regard for Sister P as I will relate below.  The woman could be as hard as nails, but she equally could be soft and tender.  I imagine that Mother Theresa of Calcutta must have been a similar character

Sister Pauline was quite learned in that she had written books on nursing that had been published.

In 1950 the Abortion Act had not yet come into Law in Britain, and it was a criminal offence to “procure an abortion”.  And to do this in a Catholic Clinic, was the height of bravado.  I expect that the “arrangement” was laid on at St Vincent’s because who would expect an abortion to be carried out in a Catholic Clinic.  Jeanne told me that when the woman came round later, she was quite upset as she still, as the Good Book calls it, “with child”.  Jeanne told me that she had no idea what took place behind the scenes, but would have loved to have been a fly on the wall.

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My respect for Sister Pauline occurred when I put my foot through the ceiling directly over her bed in the room below.  I stepped over a piece of rolled-up lino without realizing that the hidden floorboard had been lifted and removed.

 I went in fear and trepidation to see Sister Pauline in her office.  I told her what had happened with the expectation of setting off a bomb, but all she said was:

“Did you hurt yourself Colin?”

“No Sister”

“Oh, that’s good.  I’ll send one of the girls to clear up the mess.  And Albert (the odd-job man) will mend the ceiling.

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Jeanne told me another story about St Vincent's.  The cook had given in her notice and the matron (also a sister of charity) mentioned to one of the patients that they were looking for a cook.

“Why don’t you have a chef.  It would be much more prestigious to have a chef rather that a cook”

The reply must have been the quote of the year, but not suitable for Auntie BBC in those days:

“I’m not having any man play with his penis and then serve up my dinner”

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Another mini-story that Jeanne told me:

She first became employed by St Vincent’s at an orphanage in Mill Hill in north London.  One of the babies was the illegitimate daughter of an Arab prince.  Jeanne told me that the child was truly regal in its demeanor from the age at which it could just sit up.  “Breeding shows” she told me.

Questions welcome to CDCNottm@AOL.com

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