Naked Nurse: My Life in Nursing

The book covers Rose’s life from 1945 to 1985. It is a thoughtful, heartfelt journey from childhood idyll in Derbyshire and Cornwall, through her student nurse days in Sheffield, midwifery training in London, the Swinging Sixties as a single mother, to family life and eventual divorce. She faced family tragedy in a large, boisterous family with an Irish GP father, Catholicism which she says was an unwelcome imposition and sexual violence. She went through hard times on her own in the big city. Eventually remarrying and moving to Kent she became an NHS statistic in 1985 as a work-injured nurse no longer able to work. The conduct of her employer, the National Health Service in making sure she did not receive compensation is disgraceful. This is where the book ends.

Naked Nurse because of the vulnerability of student nurses, of young women in general in the 1960s. It is a harsh regime that Rose describes in the book through chapters eight to thirteen (there are thirty in total), though there are also highs. She laments some aspects of the standards of modern nursing and hopes they at least did not have to put up with the bullying and process of dehumanization that was more associated with military training.

You will laugh many times while reading the book. At other times you will want to weep.