Matron at Last

A heart-warming nurse's memoir by the author of Sunday Times bestselling books A Nurse in Time and A Nurse in Action – a must-read for fans of the BBC's nostalgic gem Call the Midwife

Brought up in Lincolnshire, Evelyn Prentis (real name Evelyn Taws) left home at eighteen to become a nurse. She later moved to London during the war, where she married and raised her family. Like so many other nurses, she went back to hospital and used any spare time she might have had bringing up her children and running her home. She later became Matron of the Lodge, a residential home for ladies of reduced circumstances. Born in 1915, she sadly died in 2001 at the age of eighty-five.

'When do you have a bath?' I asked Mrs Turgoose. 
'I hope you're not suggesting that I don't look after meself properly,' she said crossly. 'There was a woman who used to use it, but that was because she was a bit stuck up. She soon went off the idea when it started to get cold.' 
 
After working as a nurse for thirty years, Evelyn left the hospital to become a full-time Matron at The Lodge - a home for elderly ladies of reduced circumstances. 
 
Evelyn was nothing like the matrons she had known and feared in the past. In spite of broken nights and hot dinners left to get cold, Mrs Peters with her temper and Mrs Harrison with her 24-hour piano playing, her new role offered a chance to make a difference to her ladies' lives. 
 
Even though it did mean she was on call twenty-four hours a day, this is Evelyn's funny and affectionate memoir of her years - at last! - as a Matron.

Evelyn Prentis Bundle: A Nurse in Time/A Nurse in Action

Two wonderful Sunday Times bestselling memoirs by early twentieth-century nurse Evelyn Prentis

Warm and funny ... with her dry humour, eye for life's quirkiness and her charming and self-deprecating manner, Evelyn might not have been a 'born nurse' but she was certainly a born writer. Don't miss her entertaining and often moving story

Brought up in Lincolnshire, Evelyn Prentis (real name Evelyn Taws) left home at eighteen to become a nurse. She later moved to London during the war, where she married and raised her family. Like so many other nurses, she went back to hospital and used any spare time she might have had bringing up her children and running her home. Born in 1915, she sadly died in 2001 at the age of eighty-five.

Desperate circumstances were something Evelyn Prentis had to get very used to when she began her life as a nurse. It was in 1934 that Evelyn left home for the first time to enrol as a trainee at a busy Nottingham hospital in the hope of £25 a year. 
 
A Nurse in Time is Evelyn's affectionate and funny account of those days of dedication and hardship, when never-ending nightshifts, strict Sisters and permanent hunger ruled life, and joy was to be found in a late-night pass and a packet of Woodbines. 
 
The second memoir in this collection is A Nurse in Action. Surprising Matron as well as herself, Evelyn Prentis managed to pass her Finals and become a staff-nurse. Encouraged, she took the brave leap of moving from Nottingham to London - brave not least because war was about to break. 
 
Not only did the nurses have to cope with stray bombs and influxes of patients from as far away Dunkirk, but there were also RAF men stationed nearby - which caused considerable entertainment and disappointment, and a good number of marriages ... 
 
But despite all the disruption to the hospital routine, Evelyn's warm and compelling account of a nurse in action, shows a nurse's life would always revolve around the comforting discomfort of porridge and rissoles, bandages and bedpans.

A Nurse and Mother

The third Sunday Times bestseller from the author of A Nurse in Time, a nostalgic memoir of nursing and motherhood at the end of World War 2

'Matron smiled. It was the smile that one woman gives to another and not the chilly facial movement from Matrons of old. "Do you think you would be able to work 9 to 3.30?" For a moment I couldn't think at all. There seemed something not quite right in being paid for so little labour.' 
 
At the end of the Second World War, as husbands came back to Civvy Street their wives had the luxury of staying at home with the children. For a short while at least. Soon Evelyn realised she had to find part-time work to make ends meet, and to her astonishment she was offered part-time hours at her old hospital. 
 
The day-to-day job hadn't changed much, but she was now a nurse and mother. Whooping cough and measles could still kill a small child, and the early '50s polio epidemic left the whole country in shock. 
 
But the nurses worked hard, moaned incessantly about their aching feet and yet found things to laugh at, just as they did from the start of their training. If old soldiers never die, then neither do nurses.

A Nurse in Action

A nostalgic nurse's memoir for fans of Nurse and Call and Yes Sister, No Sister, sequel to A Nurse in Time (March 2011)

Brought up in Lincolnshire, Evelyn Prentis (real name Evelyn Taws) left home at eighteen to become a nurse. She later moved to London during the war, where she married and raised her family. Like so many other nurses, she went back to hospital and used any spare time she might have had bringing up her children and running her home. Born in 1915, she died in 2001 at the age of eighty-five.

'We were quickly learning to live with war. We became very proficient at moving the patients who could walk quickly to the shelters when the sirens went. We were equally proficient at talking those who couldn't walk into believing that they would be safe where they were. Some believed us, others didn't.' 
 
Surprising Matron as well as herself, Evelyn Prentis managed to pass her Finals and become a staff-nurse. Encouraged, she took the brave leap of moving from Nottingham to London - brave not least because war was about to break. 
 
Not only did the nurses have to cope with stray bombs and influxes of patients from as far away Dunkirk, but there were also RAF men stationed nearby - which caused considerable entertainment and disappointment, and a good number of marriages ... 
 
But despite all the disruption to the hospital routine, Evelyn's warm and compelling account of a nurse in action, shows a nurse's life would always revolve around the comforting discomfort of porridge and rissoles, bandages and bedpans.

A Nurse in Time

A nostalgic nurse's memoir in the bestselling vein of Call the Midwife and Nurse on Call

'It must be stressed from the start that I was not a born nurse. Not every girl is. Not every nurse is either, however wholeheartedly she may throw herself into the project once she gets going. Born nurses can be easily recognised. They have a little something the others haven't got which never seems to desert them however desperate the circumstances may become' 
 
Desperate circumstances were something Evelyn Prentis had to get very used to when she began her life as a nurse. It was in 1934 that Evelyn left home for the first time to enrol as a trainee at a busy Nottingham hospital in the hope of £25 a year. 
 
A Nurse in Time is her affectionate and funny account of those days of dedication and hardship, when never-ending nightshifts, strict Sisters and permanent hunger ruled life, and joy was to be found in a late-night pass and a packet of Woodbines.

Evelyn Prentis

'She should never have kept the business going after her husband died. Running a betting shop is no job for a woman. Especially when she's got bad legs.' 
 
After a short stay at hospital herself, Evelyn Prentis wondered what was in store for her when she returned to work. From the door-slamming Miss Cromwell to Mrs Silver's shoplifting and Mrs May coming over all queer, being Matron in charge of the Lodge was rarely straightforward. 
 
So when her ladies became unusually united in their grumbling about newest resident Ivy, the woman who'd kept the betting shop on the High Street, Evelyn was ready for all hell to break loose. 
 
But instead, with openness and kindness, Ivy won people over and even started bringing them together. Suddenly, being in charge of the Lodge was no trouble at all ...

Evelyn Prentis

Praise for Matron in Charge

Perceptive, warm and very funny

Highly amusing and entertaining

Books by Evelyn Prentis

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter