THE student nurse who put all the patients’ false teeth in a bowl to clean them wasn’t the only one to cause mayhem in Oxfordshire hospitals.

Nurse Dorothy Holloway recalls how one junior destroyed almost all her ward’s thermometers – and got her into trouble too.

She writes: “I had to report to the chief nurse, with one very tearful junior, who had carefully boiled 62 mercury thermometers to sterilise them, instead of putting them in the spirit provided.

“That left us with only one thermometer with which to take 36 morning temperatures. Naturally, as charge nurse, I too got a severe wigging!”

Previously, Dawn Griffis, who worked as a nurse at the Horton Hospital, Banbury, described how one student nurse had fouled up twice.

She recalled (Memory Lane, March 24): “The nurse was told to gather all the thermometers and containers and clean them. She put them in a large basin and filled it with the hottest water she could from the tap. No thermometers and few containers survived that onslaught.

“For her next project a few days later, she was to clean each patient’s false teeth. She came back very quickly and said she had finished.

“We looked in total horror. She had put all the patients’ teeth in a large basin, taken them to the sluice room and cleaned them.

“There they were, spotlessly clean, all grinning up at us. We had to go to each patient and ask them if they recognised their set of teeth and ask them to try them on.”

Mrs Holloway, of Wenrisc Drive, Minster Lovell, was prompted to write in after reading the memories of fellow nurse Fran Deacon, who described the strict regime at the Radcliffe Infirmary and the Churchill Hospital in the 1960s.

Mrs Holloway writes: “I trained at the Churchill in October 1966 and well remember the rigid routines as we alternated between the Churchill and the Radcliffe Infirmary in our training and later at Cowley Road geriatric hospital.

“In Ward 1 at the Churchill, Sister Peaty had the reputation of being a battleaxe, but I found her one of the nicest sisters.

“I built up a special patient relationship with one young haemophiliac – I was solely responsible for his care on day or night duty and I learned much about his condition.

“I remember Sister Peaty, having true care and compassion for her patients, sending a taxi for me (after a rare dispensation from the holy terror – matron) from the Radcliffe to sit with him during his last few hours of life at his request.

“Later, after qualifying, as an State Enrolled Nurse (SEN), I debated whether to specialise in geriatric care, but the mere thought of working under an awful Sister (who shall remain nameless) killed off every love of nursing for me.

“I decided to go for children’s plastic surgery at the Churchill for my permanent post before leaving to marry. Only two of the 14 on our course stayed – Joanna McKinnon and me.

“I do have some happy memories of my time as a nurse and I still have my brass buckle and hospital badge to this day with my SEN name plate.”

“I admire how practical the trousers are today compared with the dresses and aprons we wore.

“The aprons probably transmitted more bugs than anything, although infections were rarely seen in the 1960s and 1970s, unlike today.”