Hurry up Nurse: Memoirs of nurse training in the 1970s

"Carry On, Nurse"??? Absolutely not!!! Hattie Jaques and Barbara Windsor---eat your hearts out! Nursing is a vocation, requiring careful observation and important decisions. No-one could undertake that rigorous training for fun. Society has long exploited the innate natural maternal instinct of women to nurture and care for others. And nurses have not merely been the victims of this type of exploitation, but in popular masculine culture, they have been objects of inappropriate lust and innuendo. Dawn Brookes' memoir :- "Hurry Up, Nurse" does much to question this inaccurate mythology. And it is a shameful fact that politicians have over the ages relied on the caring nature of many dedicated women (and men) to provide this exhausting essential service in our hospitals for meagre financial reward and limited national influence.Dawn Brookes describes with insight and humour the training she underwent in the seventies. She entered the profession largely because a friend who had enjoyed her training ,had had to resign from it. One gets the impression that she saw in Dawn, a personality with stamina and compassion. It seems grossly unfair to the laywoman that the training whilst demanding considerable energy and physiological insight attracts less respect than that which doctors are awarded. Surely the two professions should be on an equal footing.Dawn recounts her experiences with humour and compassion and "Hurry Up, Nurse" is both entertaining and informative. There are many amusing episodes but the underlying message of this memoir is the realisation that the profession of nursing is undervalued nationally, not least because of popular entertainment stereotyping. Whilst the humour is compelling and infectious, Dawn has written a serious appraisal of her own training and does not let the reader forget that the expertise and dedication of the nursing profession is the bedrock of our precious National Health Service. The selflessness of the nursing profession is why our Health Service still exists.

Although most of Dawns memories mirrored my own experiences having been trained at approximately the same time, I was dismayed that despite having several educational qualifications , she writes in a very haphazard way and her written English leaves a bit to be desired.. she writes ‘me and my brother’ three times in the book when it should obviously be ‘my brother and I’.The book seems to be a bit of a muddle, jumping backwards and forwards from her professional to her private life, sometimes in the same paragraph. It can be a bit confusing at times. I’m afraid I’ve read better memoirs.

God help any other nurse trying to measure up to this oh do perfect nurse! She's never forgotten anything in her life and been the model student. So from her perspective any A&E nurse are clearly uncaring and must be mentally unstable to choose that specialism, any nurse trained after the 70s is incompetent and unable to do simple maths (despite now having to have certain grades in A-level to train as a nurse) and obviously Doctors only want a nurse for a one night stand when I know many Dr/nurse marriages lasting over 30 years! She sounds like a bitter spinster! Not as funny as I had hoped for and felt very dishearten after reading this book!

Dawn Brookes' account of her life whilst training to be a nurse in the 1970s is full of humour and light-hearted descriptions - yet it also touches the very roots of this most caring of all professions. The sheer hard work, long hours, low pay, unpleasantness of dealing with bodily functions and strictness of senior staff, brings home to us in 2019 all that those who work for the NHS now are still doing for people greatly in need (it could be any of us). I am delighted that Dawn has gone on to have such a long and successful career, especially as - by her own admission - she was not academic during schooldays. And that the friendships she has built and the affection and gratitude of her many hundreds of patients have given her so much fulfillment. I read her book with smiles but also great appreciation of the nursing profession.

Very human and very real. I love the way this was narrated and could picture Dawn at work. Nice change that it wasn’t full of the usual doctor/nurse romances and actually focussed on life as a nurse. Going on to read book 2 now.

This book took me on a memory lane journey of Pupil Nurse Training. Likewise doing further training later. The descriptions were so real I was there with Dawn. Well done.

I bought this book as a stocking filler for my wife's Christmas as she is a retired nurse of 40 years experience and is quite an avid reader. I have heard a few very funny stories from her about her own experiences and thought that she would appreciate some good stories from a fellow trainee nurse in the 70s. To be brief she was quite disappointed after reading the book.

I trained as a general nurse in the 1970's and I looked forward to a pleasant perhaps numerous, trip down memory lane. However I was disappointed in this as it was mainly about her own achievements, her social life and her personal dislike of her father and work colleagues.