Shadows of the Workhouse

reception centre, where you are treated gentle-like. Later you will learn what army life is, when you have been sorted into the regiments what you have enlisted for. Get me. You will have an hour’s drill before breakfast. Then your breakfast, then an hour’s parade, then present to the colour sergeants for sorting. Got it? Right. In line. Down to the parade ground.’
    “We got into some sort of line and filed down the stone stairs. In the darkness outside we could hear voices rather like the staff sergeant’s barking out orders. We were put to physical exercises – press-ups, star-jumps, squatting with straight back, step-ups. Imagine all that with a headache and no sleep! But I kept thinking this was better than hanging around the dock gates looking for work, and it was. The last quarter of an hour consisted of the most exhausting exercise so far – running with your knees lifted high at each step. After this, we were starving for our breakfast. This consisted of dry bread and sweet tea. It tasted delicious. After that we were led to the parade ground for another hour of drill. At 9 a.m. a bugle sounded and the colour sergeants marched onto the square, each followed by a duty sergeant carrying a list of names, which they read out in turn. The recruits were sectioned into their colours, and marched off. This happened every day, because the recruiting sergeants were busy enlisting unsuspecting young lads like me every day of the week.
    “There were only four Scots Guards recruits that day. It’s a crack regiment.” (Mr Collett said this with great pride, lifting his chin high.) “We were taken in marching order to the quartermaster’s stores, where we were issued with top-coat, cape, leggings, one suit of scarlet, one of blue for drills, boots, shirts, socks, and numerous pieces of regimental dress. We were issued with a rifle, bayonet, and two white buff straps, with pouches that could hold fifty rounds apiece. We were also issued with a busby, the tall fur headdress reserved for Guards. Everyone in the regiment was very proud of these.
    “We – the four of us, that is – were shown to a whitewashed barrack room overlooking the square. A corporal was in charge of each billet, and a couple of older duty-men also kept billet there. They showed us how to fix straps for drill purposes, how to roll the top-coat and fix it to the kitbag, how to fix leggings, what cleaning materials we would need, how to place our cape and scarlet top-coat, when not in use, on the racks above our cots – even how the straps of the kitbag should hang from pegs above the head of the cot.”
    The pettiness of it all, the meticulous attention to detail, reminded me of my nurse’s training. I told Mr Collett about it. We were issued with three fitted dresses, twelve aprons, five caps and a cape. We were given precise instructions on how they must be worn at all times. The hem of our dresses had to be fifteen inches from the floor, no more, no less. Caps, which were flat pieces of starched linen, had to be folded and pinned to an exact shape and size. Aprons had to be pinned at an exact point above the bosom, and adjusted to the precise length of the dress. Shoes had to be black lace-ups, of a specific style, with rubber soles for quietness. Stockings were black, with seams. Belts and epaulettes were of differing colours, distinguishing the different years of training a student nurse underwent. Full uniform had to be worn at all times when on duty. I recall, in my first year of training, being ordered out of the dining room by a third-year nurse, because I had forgotten to put on my cap. Later, when I became a ward sister, I forgot my cuffs on one occasion when I went to the matron’s office, and was sent back to the ward to get them before I could address her!
    We discussed whether this sort of discipline was necessary. Mr Collett said: “Well, it certainly is for men, because large numbers of men living together can easily become like wild animals. Men are brutes at heart, and without the civilising influence of women they quickly revert to savagery. The discipline of the armed forces is the only thing that keeps them under control. I wouldn’t have thought it was necessary for women, though, would you? But I maintain that nurses always look lovely, and so I approve of the uniform.”
    I chuckled at this. There is no doubt in my mind that the nurses’ uniform of the early and middle 1900s was just about the sexiest thing