Nurse Remembering a Resident
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Record Number: 4.105
Record Type: Text/Image
Caption:
Mrs. Creed as a nurse at the Royal Albert. (Ref. No. 42.0020 Courtesy of Mrs Creed)
Summary:
In an interview on March 21st 2007 Mrs Creed, who started working at the Royal Albert in 1949, remembered a story told to her by one of the residents she knew. One day this woman (whose name has been changed here) told Nurse Creed, as she was known, about how she came to be at the Royal Albert.
'They used to bury them in b – you know just boxes and put ‘em when I first went – paupers. Because a lot of them, you know, once they were put in the Royal Albert nobody wanted to know really, the families didn’t want to know, you know. I mean I can remember one patient talking to me, Mary*, a nice, nice person been there for years and years. And she was talking to me one night. And she said, ‘You know Nurse Creed,’ she said, ‘I should never have been here.’ And I said, ‘Well why is that Mary?’ She said – and she’d been there, she was an old woman, you know, getting on. She died actually. She said, ‘I – ‘ She was a bit backward school wise and so she stayed at home for her sister and her (sister’s) husband. And did the cleaning and looked after the house and things. And one day she was in the bedroom, she told me, and the husband come and started being nasty and her sister caught them. And that’s why she was in the Royal Albert. All those years. And, do you know, it brings tears to my eyes. And I thought that was terrible. She blamed Mary, you know. And – yeah – it still does now.’
*Name changed.
(Ref No. 42.0027)
'They used to bury them in b – you know just boxes and put ‘em when I first went – paupers. Because a lot of them, you know, once they were put in the Royal Albert nobody wanted to know really, the families didn’t want to know, you know. I mean I can remember one patient talking to me, Mary*, a nice, nice person been there for years and years. And she was talking to me one night. And she said, ‘You know Nurse Creed,’ she said, ‘I should never have been here.’ And I said, ‘Well why is that Mary?’ She said – and she’d been there, she was an old woman, you know, getting on. She died actually. She said, ‘I – ‘ She was a bit backward school wise and so she stayed at home for her sister and her (sister’s) husband. And did the cleaning and looked after the house and things. And one day she was in the bedroom, she told me, and the husband come and started being nasty and her sister caught them. And that’s why she was in the Royal Albert. All those years. And, do you know, it brings tears to my eyes. And I thought that was terrible. She blamed Mary, you know. And – yeah – it still does now.’
*Name changed.
(Ref No. 42.0027)
Notes:
Keywords:
1930s? 1940s? Entering Hospital Female Resident Burials
Paupers Forgotten Unjust Relationships Staff Residents
Female Staff Punishment