A Nurse in Action
By (Author) Evelyn Prentis
Ebury Publishing
Ebury Press
15th August 2011
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Memoirs
Second World War
Modern warfare
Nursing
610.73092
Paperback
320
Width 126mm, Height 198mm, Spine 20mm
219g
A nostalgic nurse's memoir for fans of Nurse and Call and Yes Sister, No Sister, sequel to A Nurse in Time (March 2011) 'We were quickly learning to live with war. We became very proficient at moving the patients who could walk quickly to the shelters when the sirens went. We were equally proficient at talking those who couldn't walk into believing that they would be safe where they were. Some believed us, others didn't.' Surprising Matron as well as herself, Evelyn Prentis managed to pass her Finals and become a staff-nurse. Encouraged, she took the brave leap of moving from Nottingham to London - brave not least because war was about to break. Not only did the nurses have to cope with stray bombs and influxes of patients from as far away Dunkirk, but there were also RAF men stationed nearby - which caused considerable entertainment and disappointment, and a good number of marriages ... But despite all the disruption to the hospital routine, Evelyn's warm and compelling account of a nurse in action, shows a nurse's life would always revolve around the comforting discomfort of porridge and rissoles, bandages and bedpans.
Perceptive, warm and very funny * Sunday Telegraph *
Highly amusing and entertaining * Derby Evening Telegraph *
Brought up in Lincolnshire, Evelyn Prentis (real name Evelyn Taws) left home at eighteen to become a nurse. She later moved to London during the war, where she married and raised her family. Like so many other nurses, she went back to hospital and used any spare time she might have had bringing up her children and running her home. Born in 1915, she died in 2001 at the age of eighty-five.