Centenary Babe – Nursing Days: Adelaide, South Australia 1952 to 1959

If you are looking for facts, documented history, historical accuracy ………. this is not the book for you! This is a personal account by Janet Cornelius of her dream to become a children’s nurse and her experiences along the way, during the 1950’s. She writes with expression and bits of drama from her days. Her nursing friend Dorothy Kitto when reading the book stated “all I can say is these nursing experiences are VERY TRUE TO LIFE!”

Read, enjoy and be inspired that an ‘ordinary’ life is in fact an ‘extraordinary life’ when you look at it differently!

“Hurrah! I have finished with school days…….. All I now wished to do was to be a nurse, nursing babies and children. I was still only 15 years and 7 months old. I had to be 18 to begin training.
So I became the very first Casualty Porteress…………….. How proud I was of my blue cross-over overall. I remember changing in the Red Cross “Room” in Casualty itself. The room itself had only four walls, no roof, but still called a “room”. Each morning I started at 8.00a.m. and worked until 5.00p.m.”

“How wonderful it was to learn to roll cotton wool swabs/balls. All the cotton wool came in large rolls and had to be rolled into small balls by hand, teasing the cotton wool out to make it light and then rolling it into balls in the palm of my hand.”

“Each day’s work was different. I never knew what I was going to do but I enjoyed this variety very much. Working with so many different people was a great lesson for me. I began to grow up as I saw more of the world. One of the people that I met was “Harry”. Yes, I do remember him. He was a mine of information. Any difficulties was a chance to go and see Harry. He was my original “Mr. Fix It”

“Most of these [baby] bottles went to Rose Ward…….. This was one of my favourite wards. We had babies from just born to three months old. It was a lovely ward to work in BUT OH SO BUSY. There were four cots to each cubicle and we were given a cubicle to look after. If we started at 7.00a.m. we had to “top and tail” (wash the face and bottom, and change the nappy, no throw away nappies) of each baby before feeding it. We had 1 1/4 hours to do this AND feed each one. We were not allowed to “prop” a bottle, that is leave it on the pillow so the baby could suck the teat, while we watched and fed another one. OH NO! definitely not allowed.”

Now three years of training were coming to an end. I was studying very hard. My final exams were approaching and I had to pass the University exam plus the Adelaide Children’s Hospital theory and practical exam. A group of us walked to the university exam together which was to take place at the university itself. Our last walk from the Children’s Hospital to the building where we had sat through so many lectures.”

So whether you are into nursing, history, or the social life during the 1950’s in South Australia, this could be the book for you!

There is no high drama, just the everyday experiences of not having the school grades and having to study again, being the first nurse on hand as a boy is hit by a train, and then the unexpected romance at 24 years of falling in love with an RAF man from England, and making the long 5 weeks’ sea journey to England where she knew no-one……. and all this in the years before mobile phones, internet and telephone calls across the Atlantic were direct dial without the operator listening in!

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