One of the patients offered me a pair of her fleece lined lounge pants but I declined gracefully stating they were not quite my colour.
I have worn a uniform of sorts on every day bar one in my entire adult working life of 37 years bar for one day.
That was my first day as charge nurse of my own ward, where I went in for management day wearing a shirt and tie.
The mainly Yorkshire staff were somewhat nonplussed by my effort of looking smart and for the most part laughed good humouredly at my efforts.
One middle aged lass, a support worker who had been a colleague for over a decade sniffed loudly as I passed
" You going to a funeral ?" She asked dryly
My ward uniform then was a navy tunic. Going into navy , is a proud step for a nurse in the Uk for it generally means you have reached the rank of " sister" , a position that then signified that you ran your own ward.
Now , with the plethora of clinical nurse specialists and advenaced nurse practitioners sisters can be found in abundance, but still there is a kudos and respect for the role and the experience.
In the early 1990s I went to Pittsburgh to visit the city's rehabilitation units and in one wore my own natty white British uniform in the clinical area
The mainly black collection of patients found it hilarious and often referred to me as "stay puft"Guy
A reference which took me a while to work out
There's always one that will bring you down to earth
Everyone's a critic!
