The Mother's Of Lovely Lane Read online

  THE MOTHERS OF LOVELY LANE

  Nadine Dorries

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.headofzeus.com

  About The Mothers of Lovely Lane

  Noleen Delaney is one of an army of night cleaners at St Angelus Hospital. Son Bryan has a good job as one of the hospital’s porters’ boys, but Finn has done something unheard-of and passed his eleven-plus exam. How on earth will they pay for his books, his grammar school uniform and shoes?

  Bronia Ryan has battled depression since her husband died. Even in that poor neighbourhood her house is a byword for chaotic squalor. And now one son is in prison. Her youngest, Lorcan, wants no part of a life of crime, but how can he ever escape? Or protect his mother from her vicious eldest son?

  As usual, St Angelus is at the heart of things. Life and death, love and loss, jealousies, rivalries and betrayals are woven into a rich tapestry – the latest instalment in Nadine’s great series about poverty, sacrifice and community spirit in post-war Liverpool.

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About The Mothers of Lovely Lane

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Acknowledgements

  About Nadine Dorries

  About The Lovely Lane Series

  About The Four Streets Trilogy

  Also by Nadine Dorries

  Newsletter

  From the Editor of this Book

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  For my best friend, Alison,

  and all mothers everywhere

  1

  July 1954

  It was three weeks since the day of the accident that had rocked St Angelus and everyone who worked there to the core. Teddy Davenport, the most popular junior doctor at the hospital, boyfriend and true love of one of the most popular student nurses, Dana Brogan, had almost lost his life in a car accident. He’d been racing down to the Pier Head to collect Dana, who had just returned from a visit back to her family farm in the west of Ireland. From absolutely nowhere and without a second’s warning, a young pregnant woman had stepped straight out into the path of his speeding car. Dana, sitting on her suitcase nearby as she waited for Teddy to arrive, had witnessed the whole thing.

  In the days since the accident, Teddy had spent many hours in surgery, with patients and staff alike holding their collective breath, willing him to survive. He almost died a number of times. What saved his life was a resuscitation technique that had been newly discovered in America and was being pioneered at St Angelus by Dr Anthony Mackintosh. Every time Teddy almost succumbed to the shock of his injuries, Dr Mackintosh brought him back, only for Teddy to leave them again within minutes. It was down to Dr Mackintosh and the heroic efforts of the orthopaedic surgeon, Mr Mabbutt, that Teddy eventually pulled through, and everyone knew it.

  Through these darkest of days Dana was supported by her closest friends and housemates from the Lovely Lane nurses’ home: Pammy Tanner, Victoria Baker and little Beth Harper. With Teddy now beginning his long recuperation on the male orthopaedic ward, she was beside him for as much time as she could manage. After nine hours on her ward shift, she routinely spent a further four hours at Teddy’s bedside, with the permission of Matron, nursing him through the worst.

  The accident and Teddy’s near death had stunned everyone who worked with him or knew him. It even made the front page of the Liverpool Echo. There wasn’t a nurse, porter or domestic at St Angelus who did not see the day of Teddy’s accident as a turning point in the life of the hospital. It was like a catalyst that forced everyone to accept that it was now time to embrace the post-war world and the new NHS and all it brought with it. Taking the path of resistance, as Matron and some members of the hospital board had, was no longer an option.

  Mr Mabbutt, physically and mentally exhausted after his many hours of orthopaedic reconstruction on Teddy, was vociferous in his views about the need for change. Once Teddy had left the operating table for the final time, the surgeon made it very plain that things at St Angelus could not continue as they were.

  ‘I cannot go on operating like this, in these primitive conditions!’ he yelled as he smashed the theatre’s central overhead lamp with his fist.

  Theatre Sister looked on in alarm as the huge concave metal structure swung wildly from side to side. She had stood at Mr Mabbutt’s back during his most difficult operations for more than twenty-five years, anticipating his requirements and wiping his dripping brow, once smooth and youthful, now lined and craggy. No one dared refuse him anything, ever, so frequent and loud were his exclamations of ‘bloody nurse’, ‘bloody patient’, ‘bloody mess’ and even ‘bloody sister’, but she’d never seen him this angry.

  ‘The bloody war was bloody over years ago. We have to have new theatres! We must update this equipment and we need more bloody trained staff, for God’s sake. What is wrong with these people, these bloody do-gooders on the board?’

  The newly qualified staff nurse, washing truly bloody dressings as Theatre Sister counted bloody swabs on to her trolley, burst into tears. Mr Mabbutt terrified her. Never more so than when he was shouting, and, like everyone else in the vicinity, she was petrified that the overhead light would crash on to the floor if he banged it again.

  ‘It’s like operating in a bloody field hospital here! I thought I’d left those days behind. The NHS was supposed to improve life, not make it more complicated. I want a bloody new theatre. We all need a new theatre or half of the people who come in here to be operated on will die. It’s bloody astonishing Dr Davenport wasn’t one of them. Get me bloody Matron – NOW!’

  Mr Mabbutt’s shouting and cursing could be heard all the way down the stairs and along the hospital corridor. A group of walking wounded, sitting on ladder-backed chairs in casualty, waiting to be seen by the gentle Dr Mackintosh, raised their heads from their copies of the Liverpool Daily Post and looked at each other in mild alarm.

  But Matron had known Mr Mabbutt for decades and his profanity and bad temper had little impact. She was more than used to it. She ruled the roost and as only she and Mr Mabbutt knew, he was more scared of her than she of him. It had been many years since she had needed to reprimand him for his behaviour with a junior nurse. Engaged to be married, he had been summoned to her office and read the riot act. The result was that Mr Mabbutt changed his ways. In return he had been guaranteed Matron’s absolute discretion, a promise Matron had never broken. Nonetheless, Mr Mabbutt did not want ever to be reminded of how he had almost lost the love of his life, to whom he had now been married for many happy years. He never wanted to push Matron over the edge. His guilt was her secret weapon and that meant she was almost the only person in the hospital who could deal with his rages. On this occasion, however, she decided to send for Dr Gaskell, the longest-serving and most senior doctor in the hospital and the man she trusted most of all.

  Twenty minutes later, Dr Gaskell made his way to the consultants’ sitting room. Mr Mabbutt had calmed down slightly by now, though not noticeably to the new young housekeeper who looked after the sitting room. ‘Get me my
tea and some toast – now! I haven’t eaten for ten hours,’ he snapped at her.

  The housekeeper almost jumped out of her shoes, then retreated into the kitchenette to do his bidding. The consultants were revered beings and almost worshipped by the hospital staff. They brought life into the world, they saved it in moments of crisis and, eventually, they signed it back out again. It was hardly surprising that these particular men in white coats were accorded a status which could only be described as godlike.

  ‘Dr Davenport is alive and that’s a bloody miracle,’ Mr Mabbutt said to Dr Gaskell as he sank into an armchair. ‘Especially as we don’t even have one of those new ventilators in the theatre. We don’t have the drugs or lights or the new equipment the new hospitals in places like London and Birmingham have.’ He snatched the plate of toast from the housekeeper and devoured it in three mouthfuls. ‘I’m exhausted by the amount of work we now have to do. Have you seen how busy casualty is these days? Every day there’s a broken bone for me to mend either from a fight or a car accident. It feels like every man in Liverpool is buying those lethal motor scooters and crashing the bloody things and it’s me that has to put them back together again – in a bloody primitive theatre. We need a new theatre, desperately.’

  Dr Gaskell listened and sympathized. Not so long ago he had considered retiring, but the medical advances and rapidly changing direction of the hospital under the new NHS had reawakened his interest. ‘I totally agree, old chap. We must seize every chance we get and ensure St Angelus isn’t left behind. It’s the same in my field. They’re already talking about the next generation of TB antibiotics to take over from streptomycin. Such progress I could only have dreamt of in my early days as a doctor. We must make the most of it while we can.’

  A plan was hatched. ‘Leave it to me, I’ll have a word with Matron. There are ways to handle her, as you know. You have to pick your battles carefully, and in my opinion this one is very much worth fighting.’

  *

  The following morning, Dr Gaskell paid Matron a visit. He suggested that they move ahead with proposing to the Liverpool District Hospitals Board that St Angelus urgently required a new theatre suite. ‘We can lead the request together,’ he said with a gentle smile. ‘The board will surely be impressed by such a bold and progressive proposal.’

  Matron flatly refused. ‘Oh, well, I see!’ she shot back. ‘He has got to you too, has he? Mabbutt and the usual culprits? You aren’t even a surgeon, Dr Gaskell. You are a chest doctor. You don’t even use theatre very often unless you want someone to take a lung out. I don’t understand why you are taking their side. We have a perfectly serviceable operating theatre. It’s our maternity services that are suffering. They must take priority over surgery.’

  Dr Gaskell wanted to bury his head in his hands. He had known Matron for all of his working life and her stubbornness was legendary.

  ‘Matron…’ He paused and took a breath before he went on. ‘I am not saying that maternity should be shelved or ignored or is any less of a consideration. It is just that the old theatre is beginning to cause some serious problems. Problems we wouldn’t want to read about in the Liverpool Echo, now would we?’

  ‘I will not be bullied by Mr Mabbutt and be held answerable to his unrealistic demands,’ she said. ‘It is a poor surgeon who blames his theatre and it appears to me that is exactly what Mr Mabbutt and the band of merry surgeons he has persuaded to join him in his noisy little protest – including your own son, I might add – have decided to do. Oh, they have all been to see me, one by one, as well you know. But I remain resolute, I am afraid. The answer from me is no. Absolutely no. Maternity first.’

  Matron felt let down by Dr Gaskell. Disappointed, even. They had run the hospital together for more years than either cared to count, and through the most sombre and challenging days. During the week of the May Blitz, they had both worked on casualty around the clock and although that was now over ten years ago, it was a week that neither could forget. They had become the closest friends over their very long tenure at St Angelus and she hated having confrontations with him. These days it was unusual for them to disagree and when they did, it was often soon sorted out over a glass of sherry in her sitting room.

  She rose from her chair and crossed the floor to Blackie’s basket next to the fireplace. Bending down with the ease of a woman half her age, she stroked her dog’s head, ran her fingers through the tuft of hair between his eyes and smoothed his quizzical brow. Blackie’s job in life was to protect his mistress. He was blissfully unaware of his minute Scottie size and took on all comers he considered to be a threat to his beloved human.

  ‘What does it matter to you anyway? You never go near the theatre block.’ She ran her fingers over Blackie’s eyes, which were closed in pleasure. ‘You have other far more important concerns – leading the regional TB committee, for one.’ There was now more pleading in her tone. She wished he would just give in to her on this without fuss or argument.

  ‘It doesn’t matter to me, Matron, not personally. I seem to spend most of my life in planning and committee meetings these days. And I have enough battles of my own to fight – keeping my patient list, for a start. The cheeky blighters on the board want me to hand over my patients to a new consultant, patients I have been caring for for over thirty years! A new theatre doesn’t matter to me, but it matters to St Angelus. And you are quite wrong, it has nothing to do with Oliver, although as my son spends half of his week operating in the theatre, his voice is a valid one, as valid as anyone else’s.’

  Matron raised her eyebrows. They both knew that Oliver Gaskell was in his position as consultant because Dr Gaskell senior was his father. Matron had no problem with nepotism. There was not a boy feeding the stoke holes or working as a porter’s lad who was a stranger to the St Angelus family. The hospital thrived on taking care of its own. It had been obvious that Oliver Gaskell was a talented young man, if a bit footloose and fancy free. Matron wondered if Dr Gaskell knew of his son’s reputation with her nurses. She was disappointed that, as the consultant for obs and gynae, he hadn’t backed her in her quest for a new maternity department.

  She sighed and stood up from stroking Blackie. ‘Do you want some tea?’ she asked as she smoothed away Blackie’s imaginary hair from the front of her immaculate navy dress. ‘Shall I call for Elsie?’ She was desperate to change the subject. The two of them arguing like this was making her feel sick and uncomfortable. Contrary to rumour – a rumour that supported her reputation as a matron to be feared – she hated conflict.

  However, Dr Gaskell was not to be distracted and, ignoring her question, he continued.

  ‘It is the growing population of Liverpool, the patients, I care about. The people who are alive here and now, today, don’t you see? And, yes, the women who need caesareans too. Maternity will also benefit from a new operating theatre. But we’ve so many badly healed war wounds and chronic injuries that we should be thinking about. Some of the operations carried out in those field hospitals may have saved lives, but ten years on and those men are still struggling. Our surgeons can help prevent some of them from enduring a lifetime of pain and chronic health problems. There is more damage to be attending to, Margaret. Our prosthetics clinic is full every single appointment, as you know. Every day. Doesn’t that tell you something about the way things are?’ He had used her Christian name, in desperation. Her eyebrows raised and he saw a smile almost reach her lips.

  Matron pressed the brown Bakelite bell at the side of the fireplace to summon Elsie and then marched over to her chair and flopped down in an almost girl-like manner, crossing her arms before her.

  Dr Gaskell had the distinct impression he was going to have to fight very hard to bring her on side. Harder than he ever had before. He let out a deep sigh as he crossed his fingers in front of his pursed lips. He would have to be slightly more imaginative than usual. Although something about her manner told him that he might have just taken the first fairy footstep towards getting his own way.r />
  Matron set her chin at him. He looked up. Had he won? He dared to hope.

  ‘I care about the women who are still giving birth at home and should be doing so in this hospital. Not just those who are being rushed in needing a caesarean section. The next grant should be spent on creating an efficient, lifesaving new maternity block. Maternal death is the biggest killer of young women in Liverpool, not appendicitis. We have to put an end to that and we can do, or at least we can make a start with a new maternity unit.’

  Hope fell and crashed into his boots. ‘But we have dedicated maternity and women’s hospitals already in Liverpool. As a city, it is a provision of care we lead in.’ His voice held a tinge of exasperation. He and Matron were the two most authoritative figures in the hospital and this was turning out to be the most difficult of power struggles.

  ‘Yes, but not for the Irish diaspora who live around the docks. The only place they trust is St Angelus and besides, have you heard them? If you as much as mention visiting Mill Road Hospital, they almost faint. They are the most superstitious group of people I have ever known. We forget because we work and live amongst them how much that affects everything they do.’

  Dr Gaskell knew this. He and the other doctors were continually trying to discredit the ‘bottles’ sent over from Ireland which some of their patients claimed had miraculous healing abilities. The latest competition for Dr Gaskell had been the urine of a goat that lived on a farm in Sligo and which apparently had magical powers. The only thing Dr Gaskell thought might be magical was the rate at which that particular farmer’s coffers were filling up with money being sent from Liverpool for a bottle of the offending liquid.

  ‘It will be a long time yet before those dreadful memories of the Mill Road bomb have faded,’ Matron said quietly. ‘All those mothers and babies dead. All those poor people they couldn’t rescue having to be cemented over. You can’t blame the women around here for not wanting to go near it. They refuse to deliver their babies in what is in effect a graveyard. And so they miss out on the best maternal care other women can enjoy. I just want the best for our women too.’