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When the Nightingale Sang - A Nurse's Life in the 1950s and 1960s
When the Nightingale Sang A Nurse's Life in the 1950s and 1960s Author:Cynthia O'Neill Cynthia O'Neill started her SRN nursing training in 1956 at Hammersmith Hospital, London, at a time when a nurse was not expected to speak unless spoken to, and as nothing was disposable, everything needed to be scrubbed and sterilised before re-use. More time seemed to be spent by a nurse polishing furniture and bedpans than caring for her pati... more »ents! After achieving her SRN, Cynthia went on to do midwifery training at Queen Charlottes and Thorpe Coombe Hospitals in London, followed by Queen's Nurse and Health Visitor Training. Upon qualifying, in 1961, Cynthia went to work as a district nurse and midwife in Sussex. This story is about far more than a nursing training - It follows one young woman growing up in the era when the Cold War was at its height and Rock and Roll blasts onto the scene. As she struggles to juggle her career and love life in the days before Women's Lib, a young nurse watches the world go through amazing changes. The peace movement gathers momentum, Martin Luther King dreams of a future of racial harmony, and the first man goes into space. Then Doris Day is knocked off the charts by The Beatles. "A burst of nostalgia for all lovers of the 1950s."« less