A Nurse and Mother

Nov 15, 2024 5:03 PM

Author:Evelyn Prentis

A Nurse and Mother

'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.

Reviews

Perceptive, warm and very funny

—— Sunday Telegraph

Highly amusing and entertaining

—— Derby Evening Telegraph

A delight ... his demolition job on the embarrassments of "internet freedom" is comprehensive ... as we go down the rabbit-hole of WikiLeaks, Morozov's humane and rational lantern will help us land without breaking our legs.

—— Pat Kane , The Independent

A passionate and heavily researched account of the case against the cyber-utopians ... only by becoming "cyber-realists" can we hope to make humane and effective policy.

—— Bryan Appleyard , New Statesman

Evgeny Morozov is wonderfully knowledgeable about the Internet-he seems to have studied every use of it, or every political use, in every country in the world (and to have read all the posts). And he is wonderfully sophisticated and tough-minded about politics. This is a rare combination, and it makes for a powerful argument against the latest versions of technological romanticism. His book should be required reading for every political activist who hopes to change the world on the Internet.

—— Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

The Net Delusion is considerably more than an assault on political rhetoric ... a war against complacency.

—— Tom Chatfield , Observer

Required reading for all ... a compelling primer and rebuff to the "cyber utopians" ... trenchant and persuasive.

—— John Kampfner , Sunday Times

Lively and combative ... dauntingly well-informed ... injects a welcome dose of common sense into an issue that has been absurdly lacking in it.

—— John Preston , Sunday Telegraph

Piercing...convincing...timely.

—— Ben Hammersley , Financial Times

[M]ore than rewards a respectful reading, not only for the author's impressive knowledge of the internet toolbox...but because of his ability to relate such technological gadgetry to the increasing challenges that are being posed to entrenched authoritarianism

—— James M Murphy , Times Literary Supplement

Selected by the New York Times as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2011

—— New York Times

The most polymathic science writer of our time

—— Peter Forbes , Independent, Books of the Year

An engaging and lively account of an endlessly curious man

—— Independent

A fascinating window into the complex emergent urban future. This book is an extremely sophisticated, often devastatingly witty and ironic, interpretation of what is possible over the next two decades

—— Saskia Sassen (author of TERRITORY, AUTHORITY, RIGHTS)

Throw out your old atlas. The new version is here

—— Walter Kirn (author of UP IN THE AIR)

Kasarda ... and Lindsay convincingly put the airport at the centre of modern urban life

—— Economist

Highly recommended

—— Library Journal

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