They trooped through the hospital until Holly was completely lost. It was a huge place full of winding corridors that all looked the same and she wondered how she would ever find her way about.

Nurse Blythe showed the other two girls to their wards first before escorting Holly to men’s surgical where she handed her over to a sister in a navy-blue uniform.

‘Ah, Nurse Farthing, you’re just in time to help out with the patients’ bed baths,’ she told her. ‘I’m Sister Trent and any concerns you have, you address to me.’

‘Yes, Sister,’ Holly replied meekly as her stomach turned over. Suddenly the thought of washing semi-naked men was daunting, but then she knew that someone had to do it. The curtains were drawn around the second bed on the left of the ward and opening them just enough for Holly to squeeze through, she told the nurse within, ‘Nurse Farthing will help you now, Nurse King.’

‘Yes, Sister.’ The young nurse gave Holly a welcoming smile as Holly quickly tied her work apron over her uniform to protect it, and rolled up the sleeves of her dress.

Her first day at the hospital passed in a blur of washing bedpans, not a job for the faint-hearted as Holly soon discovered, giving patients bed baths, accompanying Nurse King to the various operating theatres with the patients due for operations, and mopping floors.

‘Ooh, yer don’t half look posh in yer uniform,’ Ivy cooed that evening when Holly arrived home and flopped into a chair exhausted. ‘How did it go?’

‘All right, I suppose,’ Holly answered half-heartedly. ‘But I stink of disinfectant and my arms ache from turning patients and mopping floors.’

Ivy giggled. ‘Well, you have to start somewhere. As you gain more qualifications at your evening classes you’ll be given more responsibility. I take my hat off to you, I don’t think I could do it. In fact, I can’t think of anything worse than being around sick people all day but then you’re much more loving and giving than me. Anyway, your dinner is in the oven keeping warm. I have to shoot off now to meet Jeremy but you can tell me more about it when I get back. Ta-ra fer now.’

With that she went charging off down the stairs while Holly dragged herself over to the oven to see what there was to eat. It looked like cottage pie but she was so tired she decided she’d turn the oven off and have it later. She went and settled back down in the chair and within minutes she was fast asleep.

She was still there when Ivy returned later that evening and smiling she hurried away to fetch a blanket from the bed and draped it gently across Holly’s sleeping form before creeping away to her own room.

Towards the end of May, the weather took a turn for the better and suddenly women with bright parasols and gaily coloured dresses together with smartly dressed gentlemen were seen parading the streets. The smog that so often shrouded London seemed to disappear as if by magic and the street vendors appeared again, selling everything from posies of violets to jellied eels and pea soup. Once again the city was vibrant with sound and a million different smells and both girls tried to spend as much time as they possibly could outdoors enjoying the warm spring sunshine.