Work in progress
Previous | Contents | Next But yesterday wasn’t my day. I got flagged down by a cop on the motorway near the railway station. I decided to wait until they’d all gone off duty after rush hour. I started out but the bike went a mile and stopped. I primed it again — there was plenty of…
Previous | Contents | Next He looks like a captain, with shaggy white hair and huge eyebrows. His eyes are blue, his cheeks red with broken veins, his whole body still bluff and strong. He’s a pleasure to serve because he has courage and strength that most of the men lack. He hates being helped, will swear…
Previous | Contents | Margaret was working in the ward, gay and strong and sympathetic as always. God bless her and her husband and children. Jenny was struggling in Ward 3, a little flighty and foolish but with a heart of gold, so common here. But struggling. Nigel was in Ward 4, a little arrogant, distanced a…
Previous | Contents | Next It might have been attractive in summer, but walking up from the station in persistent drizzle on my first day was quite depressing. I was carrying my suitcase and wearing one of those cheap 1960s nylon raincoats, with my body heat condensing inside it. In the Head Porter’s office I…
Previous | Contents | Next He wears glasses and his nose is rather prominent. His upper lip slopes out towards the tip of his nose so that he gives the impression of perpetually sniffing at something. He’s friendly, something of a snob, likes to feel superior and blushes easily. He spends part of his evenings on duty…
Previous | Contents | Next I wasn’t a fully functional adult when I left Silverstream, but after the lows of Wellington I felt I’d made a start. Girls were still a mystery though. Nurses Nurses striding across the hospital grounds in their capes look like the nuns at University. When they walk in twos or small groups…
Contents This is my know-it-all nineteen year-old’s diary. I’ve left out most of my angst and insecurity, but there’s enough left to judge me by. Despite the occasional dismissive commentary, there’s nobody mentioned here I didn’t care for or admire. I’ve changed the names anyway, with a few exceptions. You’ll notice the language has changed…
Previous | Contents | Next He had a history with pain, and a strategy for coping with it — swear like hell and get on with things. His approach to illness was similar — to act “sullen and aggressive”, especially towards the nurses. And he hated to be thought a shirker. § One morning the…
Previous | Contents | Next These pages, which cover Cliff’s coal mining stories, are partly written by him, and partly by me, in the third person, based on his notes. His first job was at the Ackers mine, where he worked on at least three separate occasions, he said, as a general “tidy-upper and general…