I was five when my mother gave me a frilly cap and a little red case packed with bandages. “Playing hospital” became my favourite game and I grew up dreaming of becoming a nurse… a Night Sister just like she was.
I watched TV’s “Angels”, learned about Florence Nightingale and read about VADs on the Somme. Then in 1982 I started my training on an annual salary of £3,000, around £12,500 today. But I didn’t last the year.
Within weeks I realised my “vocation” was a fantasy and I didn’t have the stomach or staying power for nursing.
