Lost in Shropshire

Agency work is useful for nurses in between jobs, or carers who need to supplement their meagre incomes. A few years ago I decided to try it for a few weeks while I waited to hear about an upcoming position at my local hospital. Sadly, the job never materialised and I ended up staying with the Agency for five years.

Agencies don’t suit everyone. To survive for any length of time, you need the hide of a Rhino, the resourcefulness of MacGyver and the communication skills of a hostage negotiator. Sure, you can earn a lot of money, if you’re prepared to go anywhere and work any shift with very little notice. Many’s the time I was out shopping when I received ‘the call’ from some harried office worker pleading me to drive forty or fifty miles to fill a last minute shift at some care home. I always carried a spare uniform in the car and performed many quick changes in public toilets and car parks. My ex-wife gave me the nickname Super Nurse and used to whistle the theme tune from Superman while I struggled into black trousers and a white tunic.

As a verdant recruit I used to refuse nothing and operate on the principle that the work could dry up at any moment. Consequently, I quickly became known as the ‘go to nurse’, for assignments that no one else would take. I endured this brutal baptism for the first few months, until a friend gave me the lowdown on how to beat the system. She would bypass the office and book her shifts directly with the care home or nursing client. This meant she developed a good rapport with five or six of her favourite homes who in turn placed her at the top of their emergency contact list. She also advised me to check with her before accepting a new job. The office staff were masters of understatement and spin, accentuating the positive aspects of a position, but leaving out crucial information. I soon learnt to decipher their coded language.

“He’s occasionally a bit naughty” – He may bite or throw furniture around if you don’t give him his special medicine bang on time.

“He can get a bit jealous if his wife’s around” – If I were you I’d go disguised as a woman, because if you don’t he may chase you around the garden brandishing his navy cutlass.

“The care staff are a bit thin on the ground’’ – If there aren’t any cars in the car park, when you arrive, turn round and drive off.

I quite liked been given home care assignments.  One-to-one nursing seemed purer somehow. It also gave me the chance to scratch beneath the veneer of ill-health and disability.

            “D’you fancy a bit of a road trip?” said Alison, as she sucked on a fresh cigarette.

            “Depends.”

            “Well, it’s in Shropshire. Now I know it’s a bit of a drive, but the client says you can do a long weekend if you like?” Pound sign butterflies hovered in front of my eyes, and I said yes.

The drive over was relatively straightforward.  I guided my old canary yellow Mark 1 Ford Capri through Shrewsbury town centre and past the majestic Long Mynde, laid out like a sleeping dragon. Back then, Sat Nav’s were only available as expensive options in  luxury cars, so every few minutes I glanced at the scribbled directions on my pink Post it.  The milometer said 67 miles and there was still no sign of my destination – Bishops Castle.

Convinced I’d overshot Boswell Hall, I got directions from a wild-eyed farmer who insisted on tapping his nether regions every few seconds like a dodgy pocket watch. I was also pretty sure vocal chords were located in the throat and not the scrotum.  Anyway, after a great deal of poking and gesticulating I wound up the window and drove away, completely befuddled.

I almost missed the turning. The cream coloured Georgian edifice was all but hidden by a stranglehold of knicker- pink azaleas and crimson rhododendrons. As I picked my way around deep potholes in the overgrown shingle driveway there were signs of neglect everywhere. A huge rust-encrusted sun dial minus its Gnomon teetered precariously on the large oval field that used to be a lawn. The remnants of a tennis court net hung in tatters as small shrubs vied for growing space along the faded tramlines. I picked up the scrap of paper from the passenger seat and half expected to see the name Mrs Haversham in big bold letters at the top.

The client’s ancient wife, Mrs Deborah Boswell was waiting for me under the crumbling front portico.  She gave me a well-practised smile as I backed my car underneath a large oak tree.

            “Simon isn’t it? “ she enquired in a deep Thatcherite voice, leaning heavily on a black scuffed walking stick.

            “Hello. Please to meet you Mrs Boswell.” I fought the urge to bow, proffering a soggy palm instead.

            “Deborah, please.” She shook my hand so lightly it almost floated away. Mrs Boswell bade me follow her inside where her husband, Colonel Boswell was waiting in the study. The place was dimly lit and smelled like an old shed.  Two enormous Grandfather clocks batted ticks and tocks between them like veteran table tennis players.  Threadbare Persian rugs barely muffled the sound of our footsteps as we walked - the tap-tap of Deborah's silver-tipped stick echoed throughout the house.

The Colonel was sitting in a faded green chesterfield, swathed in enough blankets to induce a fever. As I approached him he produced the broadest grin I’ve ever seen. The sort of grin used by someone who’s about to tell the best joke in the world.

             adding that her husband’s body language was much easier to understand. While she did her best to condense the last three years into half an hour, Colonel Boswell yes’d and nodded like a high court judge.

Before suffering a massive stroke he loved to go for long walks, was passionate about trees and couldn’t abide bad drivers. Well, at least we had one thing in common. I too loved to walk and suggested we explore the walled garden. Deborah promptly fetched some rickety old bath chair with solid rubber tyres and no brakes. She said it was a family heirloom, and I believed her. The problems began when I tried transferring him from comfy chair to wheelchair. He stood six feet eight inches in his cashmere socks, and weighed as much as a small car. It was no use asking his wife for assistance, as she could hardly support her own weight. Eventually, after six failed attempts I hauled him up like a recently felled tree and let him topple into the wheelchair. I half expected him to crash straight through the canvas seat, but he didn’t, and we were off. The going was slow to very slow inside the house, but deteriorated into ‘nigh on impossible’ as soon as tyres hit gravel.

            “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Shouted Mr Boswell, like someone beating out the stroke in a slave ship. The only way I could move him at all was backwards. He didn’t like this one bit and beat his huge fists on the arms of the wheelchair. I managed to drag him across the width of the drive producing two deep furrows as though a train had just been derailed at the front door.

Once on the slabbed footpath leading to the garden it was a lot easier. I asked him if we were going the right way and he pointed to a small opening in the high wall. Even though we’d only travelled about fifty feet I sweated and gasped like an overweight asthmatic. I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to the house and wondered if Deborah would object if we both slept in the greenhouse.

The walled garden followed the contours of a very steep hill, leading to a small copse at the top, so, in the absence of any ski lift or escalator, I made some feeble excuse about imminent rain and wheeled him back inside. After lunch, his wife said he always went for a drive in the countryside – to put him in a good mood.  Apparently he loved to show off his various pine forests that still provided pit props for the welsh mines. She explained his pit props were the only wooden ones left in the country.

I backed the Ford Sierra, complete with personalised number plate - AM 12 out of the semi-collapsed garage and repeated the effective but risky ‘felled tree manoeuvre’ to get him into the front seat. While I questioned my sanity for accepting this weekend treat the Colonel began pointing the way. Turn left was a loud bang on his window and turn right, almost knocked me out. A tap on the windscreen meant straight on. I could see by the greasy hand prints all over the windows that the Colonel liked to navigate a lot.

Once I explained I had no local knowledge of the roads whatsoever his face began to flush and tears welled up in his big blue eyes. Then the laughter started. Little coughs and splutters at first accompanied with much head shaking and gleeful yes’s. After a few minutes he dropped several octaves and did the best Booming Brian Blessed impression I’ve ever heard. The noise was deafening. Only when I screamed “Which bloody way!” at a T-Junction did he stop for a few seconds to catch his breath.

An hour later, after negotiating impossibly narrow lanes and countless sudden changes in direction we arrived at a roughly hewn three bar gate at the entrance to a large forest. The Colonel looked at me with an expression that said “Well, get out and open the gate then!” I soon discovered the gate in question was chained and padlocked so I did my best ‘unlocking a door’ mime from about twenty feet away. The colonel shrugged his shoulders at me and started laughing again.  My own sense of humour had gone AWOL about three hours ago, so I got back into the car and watched as the volume increased.

            “Where are we? I shouted. Don’t you have a key?” He answered with yet more shrugs and a few high pitched yes’s. I repeated the question.

            “Where are we?” After another intense bout of belly laughing he turned to me with tears streaming down his cheeks and said very slowly and clearly…

            “I have no idea.”

In 1995 I received a letter from Deborah Boswell saying that the Colonel had died peacefully in his sleep, aged 93. She was now aged 98yrs and wanted to see me again. Unfortunately she passed away before I could visit. Almost five years had elapsed since my last long weekend at Boswell Hall and yet she said I had made quite an impression on her husband. She also said many carers came and went, but no-one made him laugh or talk quite as much as me. 




(c) Simon Daniels