The Prof is a noise maker. He walks heavily, talks loudly and verbalises his thoughts constantly.
I, on the other hand am used to quiet.
I even hate radio music, especially in the morning.
This morning, after playing in the kitchen, I sat down in the armchair with an old silver plated water jug which I had " found" in the back of one of the old kitchen cabinets.
I must had had it over thirty years and had long forgotten where it had come from, but I thought I would give it a buff up as I sat in the quiet.
" What are you doing?" The Prof bellowed from his office, obviously worried that the silence from downstairs meant that I was up to no good
" I am polishing a silver jug" I called back
" More TAT !" The Prof replied
After half a hour the jug didn't look too bad and seemingly making a silk purse out of a sow's ear impressed the Prof quite a lot as he conceded a brief
" oh that's nice "as he sashayed past.
Polishing the jug reminded me of Susan And Harry. In the early 1980s they were inpatients at the old West Cheshire Hospital in Chester and had been
incarcerated there for most of their lives. Both were in their mid sixties. Both were what we used to term as
burnt out schizophrenics and both were as devoted to each other as a platonic, mentally fragile Darby & Joan
.
The West Cheshire Psychiatric Hospital
As student nurses, we used to see the couple hand in hand, ambling around the hospital grounds in their hospital issue drab clothes that seemed decades too old for them, and both would offer us well thumbed bags of sweets that smelled of loose tobacco, bought from the hospital shop in the main building.
They were a welcome sight in an otherwise austere world.
Now one day we were told that Susan and Harry were to be married and as our group had placements on
long stay a few of us were asked to attend the service in the hospital chapel
The nursing staff from Susan's and Harry's respective wards had done this drab little couple proud and both had been given a make over for their big day. A second hand wedding dress had been altered professionally for susan and her usual tight hospital perm was softened by the usually sullen hairdresser who had been given strict instructions by the ward sister not to give her a half arsed job.
Domestic staff had clubbed together to buy the bouquets and corsages and the Occupational therapy department had decorated the usually glum little chapel with flowers and garlands as well as sprucing up the ward dining room which had been converted into a function room complete with a running buffet provided by the hospital cooks.
Of course try as they might, the nursing staff couldn't quite remove the yellow nicotine stains on Harry's fingers or desguise the fact that susan had no teeth on her upper palate but the event proved to
be a rather magical moment in my nursing career and one that made me grow a little older after I had witnessed it.
The Welsh terriers sleeping as I type this post
