NURSE Dawn Griffis remembers the day she was reprimanded by matron for dancing in the ward.

It was 1958 when Elvis Presley, rock ‘n’ roll and jiving were all the rage among teenagers.

Then Dawn Alsford, she was on duty in the children’s ward at the Horton General Hospital at Banbury.

She writes: “We had a radio in the ward, and usually kept it on a music station.

“One day, we were having a difficult time keeping the kids entertained. Sister and Staff Nurse had gone to lunch, and there were just a couple of us student nurses on the ward.

“The radio was playing several Elvis songs, and the kids kept asking us to dance to it for them. We finally said we would dance just once, to the next song, Don’t Be Cruel. Just as we got to the last twirl, who should walk in but Sister and Matron.

“We were told to go to Matron’s office and to think about what we were doing.

“We tried to convince her that this was a one-time thing and why we were doing it. She wasn’t convinced. We were behaving undignified, etc, etc, and she would be watching our performances very closely from now on.”

Mrs Griffis, who now lives in the United States, recalls how shy she was as a student nurse and how flushed she became when patients teased her.

“The whole time I was inside the ward, my face, hands, and arms were bright red. Then a patient yelled out: ‘Look! Her arms and face are still red. I bet her legs are too if we could see behind those thick stockings.’ I was ready to collapse from total embarrassment.”

Her ordeal ended when another patient called her to his bed and told her to walk down the ward with eyes straight ahead and count backwards. It worked – the teasing stopped.

“In the end, they turned out to be a great bunch of patients. One of them even gave me a note of apology; which I have kept all these years.

It read: “If, owing to my poor powers of verbal expression, any slight to your honourable person was conceived, I pray for your forgiveness – John C Bushell”.

More nursing memories from Mrs Griffis soon.

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