Visiting time
Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn a-round
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground….
Connie loved skipping. This skipping song was her best one and she was the best of her sisters at skipping.
Mabel was too old for skipping because she was married, and sometimes she was expecting, but she would hold one end of the washing line while Connie skipped.
Audrey was very refined and didn’t want to show her underwear, so she didn’t join in often.
Bessie always showed her knickers by accident, skipped with arms folded over her bouncing bosom, and hooted with laughter when she tripped up. Boys liked watching her.
And Connie, the youngest, rubber-band legs and spaghetti arms, skipped and skipped and skipped all day.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, do a kick……
This bed was very comfortable. Connie didn’t remember how long she’d been in it, but it was very comfortable. It was very easy to doze off. Dozing without her spectacles or hearing aid meant she often didn’t hear the doctors and nursing staff. But a lot of the time she cracked on she hadn’t noticed, because she didn’t want to talk to them.
One young man made her jump awake with his cold hands on her tummy. He was so important that he wasn’t called a doctor, but a mister, but Connie still told him to bugger off.
Her sisters roared laughing when she told them about it at visiting time. You never! Our Connie, what are you like! You bad girl, you! You’ll get chucked out!
Connie liked visiting times the best. When all the other sick ladies were asleep, into the ward tiptoed Mabel, Audrey and Bessie, quiet as mice. They would cluster round the cosy bed, share news, and suck humbugs. Grandma May had scandalised the mothers’ union…..a bobby was trying to court Audrey……Bessie had been to ever so many films at the Odeon, with ever so many chums. It was great!
> Kim H, night duty staff. General note on Mrs Watkin, 93 years, admitted from Reedlands House last week with severe abdominal pain. Vasc Dem. Continuing stable, doesn’t like being disturbed for meds and temperature checks but on the whole OK. Sleeping well.
On Saturday evening when the girls came to visit, after the usual treats and chatter, Mabel pulled a skipping rope out of her big handbag. Connie’s favourite one, it was, the one with the wooden handles painted in blue and red stripes. Go on girlie, urged Mabel, do ‘salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper,’!
Connie was about to say, no, I can’t, I’m poorly ….but realised she didn’t feel at all ill. She threw back the bedsheets and seized her skipping ropes. Connie skipped ‘salt mustard vinegar pepper’ with no trouble, up and down the ward in her bare feet, while her sisters laughed and clapped along. Then Connie went on through her favourite skipping song.
Teddy bear, teddy bear go upstairs
Teddy bear, teddy bear say your prayers
Teddy Bear teddy bear do a kick
Teddy bear teddy bear do the splits
And she did the splits, down and back on her feet in one smooth movement. She was the best!
Then Bessie ran up and they skipped two to a rope
Two little monkeys fighting in bed
One fell out and bumped his head
until Bessie tumbled them in heap, predictably showing next week’s washing to Nurse Kim, who as a polite Korean country boy, pretended not to see.
Panting and giggling, Connie scuttled back into bed and pulled the sheets up to her chin.
>Kim H, note for Dr. Ahmed. Mrs Watkin a little disturbed last night, despite morphine as prescribed. Can you check in rounds tomorrow. Logged Sunday 02.00<
Her sisters tiptoed in again on Sunday evening, and Connie sat up eagerly. They unbuttoned their coats and sat down on the bed. Right, whispered Audrey. This has gone on long enough. There’s nowt up with you and we’re going to get you out. And we’ll make a start by going straight to Blackpool. They’ll not follow us there.
Connie’s eyes and mouth made three wide ‘o’s. She loved Blackpool…. but wouldn’t the nurse stop them?
We’ll just walk out like normal, whispered Audrey, but Connie, you will be in between me and Mabel. We’ll link arms tight, and if you keep in step and keep your head down, they won’t see you cos you’re smallest. Above all - don’t catch anyone’s eye! Bessie will bring up the rear and create a distraction. We might meet some boys in Blackpool, but we will not tell mother.
The four of them choked stifling their giggles at the sheer naughtiness of the plan.
Nice and normal now, up you get, said Mabel, looking up and down the ward. Connie was about to say, but I can’t go out in me nightie, but as she threw back the sheets she was very pleased to find she was wearing her favourite dress with pink roses printed on it, and the salmon-pink cardigan her mum had knitted her. She popped her feet into the peep-toe summer sandals by the bed.
Connie tucked in obediently between her tall sisters, who made a show of waving ta-ra to the empty bed, saying see you tomorrow our kid.
They sauntered down the ward in step and past the nurse station, not a care in the world, Mabel and Audrey making small talk over her head for the benefit of eavesdroppers. So I told her, I did, that’s no way to make shortcrust…….oh you never did…oh I did, and do you know…..
Bessie walked her best Mae West wiggle, two yards behind the group. She paused dramatically by Nurse Kim’s desk, and ostentatiously adjusted her stockings. Turning her curvaceous rear to him, she innocently asked nobody in particular if her seams were straight. He paid her no notice, and she scarpered, giggling, after her sisters, whose methodical saunter had speeded up to an elegant trot.
The four of them burst through the double doors of the ward, by now at full run, and found themselves clattering down Blackpool seafront with seagulls wheeling overhead, waves crashing and funfair music blowing on the sea breeze, while a group of likely lads perched on the promenade rails gave them the eye.
Kim didn’t know what attracted his attention from the patient notes he was studying, but for a second he thought he felt a cool breeze and could hear a screeling seagull, and he briefly remembered his grandfather's tame cormorant and fishing trips long ago. Then on an instinct he looked down the ward towards bay four and reached for the ward phone.
>Kim H Monday 04.00. Confirmation note of meeting with Dr Ahmed: next of kin contacted for Mrs Watkin. Morning shift to be made aware of DNR notice and to pass to subsequent shifts as necessary.<
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground….
Connie loved skipping. This skipping song was her best one and she was the best of her sisters at skipping.
Mabel was too old for skipping because she was married, and sometimes she was expecting, but she would hold one end of the washing line while Connie skipped.
Audrey was very refined and didn’t want to show her underwear, so she didn’t join in often.
Bessie always showed her knickers by accident, skipped with arms folded over her bouncing bosom, and hooted with laughter when she tripped up. Boys liked watching her.
And Connie, the youngest, rubber-band legs and spaghetti arms, skipped and skipped and skipped all day.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, do a kick……
This bed was very comfortable. Connie didn’t remember how long she’d been in it, but it was very comfortable. It was very easy to doze off. Dozing without her spectacles or hearing aid meant she often didn’t hear the doctors and nursing staff. But a lot of the time she cracked on she hadn’t noticed, because she didn’t want to talk to them.
One young man made her jump awake with his cold hands on her tummy. He was so important that he wasn’t called a doctor, but a mister, but Connie still told him to bugger off.
Her sisters roared laughing when she told them about it at visiting time. You never! Our Connie, what are you like! You bad girl, you! You’ll get chucked out!
Connie liked visiting times the best. When all the other sick ladies were asleep, into the ward tiptoed Mabel, Audrey and Bessie, quiet as mice. They would cluster round the cosy bed, share news, and suck humbugs. Grandma May had scandalised the mothers’ union…..a bobby was trying to court Audrey……Bessie had been to ever so many films at the Odeon, with ever so many chums. It was great!
> Kim H, night duty staff. General note on Mrs Watkin, 93 years, admitted from Reedlands House last week with severe abdominal pain. Vasc Dem. Continuing stable, doesn’t like being disturbed for meds and temperature checks but on the whole OK. Sleeping well.
On Saturday evening when the girls came to visit, after the usual treats and chatter, Mabel pulled a skipping rope out of her big handbag. Connie’s favourite one, it was, the one with the wooden handles painted in blue and red stripes. Go on girlie, urged Mabel, do ‘salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper,’!
Connie was about to say, no, I can’t, I’m poorly ….but realised she didn’t feel at all ill. She threw back the bedsheets and seized her skipping ropes. Connie skipped ‘salt mustard vinegar pepper’ with no trouble, up and down the ward in her bare feet, while her sisters laughed and clapped along. Then Connie went on through her favourite skipping song.
Teddy bear, teddy bear go upstairs
Teddy bear, teddy bear say your prayers
Teddy Bear teddy bear do a kick
Teddy bear teddy bear do the splits
And she did the splits, down and back on her feet in one smooth movement. She was the best!
Then Bessie ran up and they skipped two to a rope
Two little monkeys fighting in bed
One fell out and bumped his head
until Bessie tumbled them in heap, predictably showing next week’s washing to Nurse Kim, who as a polite Korean country boy, pretended not to see.
Panting and giggling, Connie scuttled back into bed and pulled the sheets up to her chin.
>Kim H, note for Dr. Ahmed. Mrs Watkin a little disturbed last night, despite morphine as prescribed. Can you check in rounds tomorrow. Logged Sunday 02.00<
Her sisters tiptoed in again on Sunday evening, and Connie sat up eagerly. They unbuttoned their coats and sat down on the bed. Right, whispered Audrey. This has gone on long enough. There’s nowt up with you and we’re going to get you out. And we’ll make a start by going straight to Blackpool. They’ll not follow us there.
Connie’s eyes and mouth made three wide ‘o’s. She loved Blackpool…. but wouldn’t the nurse stop them?
We’ll just walk out like normal, whispered Audrey, but Connie, you will be in between me and Mabel. We’ll link arms tight, and if you keep in step and keep your head down, they won’t see you cos you’re smallest. Above all - don’t catch anyone’s eye! Bessie will bring up the rear and create a distraction. We might meet some boys in Blackpool, but we will not tell mother.
The four of them choked stifling their giggles at the sheer naughtiness of the plan.
Nice and normal now, up you get, said Mabel, looking up and down the ward. Connie was about to say, but I can’t go out in me nightie, but as she threw back the sheets she was very pleased to find she was wearing her favourite dress with pink roses printed on it, and the salmon-pink cardigan her mum had knitted her. She popped her feet into the peep-toe summer sandals by the bed.
Connie tucked in obediently between her tall sisters, who made a show of waving ta-ra to the empty bed, saying see you tomorrow our kid.
They sauntered down the ward in step and past the nurse station, not a care in the world, Mabel and Audrey making small talk over her head for the benefit of eavesdroppers. So I told her, I did, that’s no way to make shortcrust…….oh you never did…oh I did, and do you know…..
Bessie walked her best Mae West wiggle, two yards behind the group. She paused dramatically by Nurse Kim’s desk, and ostentatiously adjusted her stockings. Turning her curvaceous rear to him, she innocently asked nobody in particular if her seams were straight. He paid her no notice, and she scarpered, giggling, after her sisters, whose methodical saunter had speeded up to an elegant trot.
The four of them burst through the double doors of the ward, by now at full run, and found themselves clattering down Blackpool seafront with seagulls wheeling overhead, waves crashing and funfair music blowing on the sea breeze, while a group of likely lads perched on the promenade rails gave them the eye.
Kim didn’t know what attracted his attention from the patient notes he was studying, but for a second he thought he felt a cool breeze and could hear a screeling seagull, and he briefly remembered his grandfather's tame cormorant and fishing trips long ago. Then on an instinct he looked down the ward towards bay four and reached for the ward phone.
>Kim H Monday 04.00. Confirmation note of meeting with Dr Ahmed: next of kin contacted for Mrs Watkin. Morning shift to be made aware of DNR notice and to pass to subsequent shifts as necessary.<