Betty JoDee takes pity on us and solves "The Mystery of the Ward Sister's Cuffs".
"The pie cap (worn by many a Neels nurse) was still used by our young, single (as I always told her, a perfect Harlequin heroine) county nurse in the isolated town where I went to high school. She said she loved it, although it was a pain to keep stiff and clean (hers was opaque and white). The other picture shows the removable cuffs and aprons (c. 1900-1945 in England). Evidently, the cuffs made them look professional, but they removed them in order to do their professional work that was invariable messy (or worse)."
Betty JoDee
"The pie cap (worn by many a Neels nurse) was still used by our young, single (as I always told her, a perfect Harlequin heroine) county nurse in the isolated town where I went to high school. She said she loved it, although it was a pain to keep stiff and clean (hers was opaque and white). The other picture shows the removable cuffs and aprons (c. 1900-1945 in England). Evidently, the cuffs made them look professional, but they removed them in order to do their professional work that was invariable messy (or worse)."
Betty JoDee
While Betty Keira and I are no slouches when it comes to posting blog entries, we are certainly not above taking any and all help we can get! Thank you Betty JoDee. You are more than a little awesome.
ReplyDeleteBetty Debbie is speaking for herself. Betty Keira is an enormous slacker and just loves it when other people do her work for her.
ReplyDeleteI thought a lot about nurses' attire then & now as I read Tabitha in Moonlight. I think one of the reasons Neels heroines weren't nurses after a while was that Neels herself lost touch with the rhythm and routine of the hospital ward after a while.
ReplyDeleteI know the British nurse uniform -- distinctively either navy or pale blue, so quite different from our ubiquitous white -- survived into the 70s and maybe later, but when I was in the Royal Free (hospital near Hampstead Heath) in 2005, nurses looked like our nurses today: relaxed and more comfortably dressed, although they're still in navy blue.
According to Wiki (where everything is accurate!) most nurses in the UK still wear dresses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_uniform