REVIEW: Sister Anne Resigns
Jan. 2nd, 2025 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllHappy new year! This is a review of the last book I read in 2024.
Sister Anne Resigns: Josephine Elder. Greyladies 2012
In a way, this is a career novel, but in another, emphasised by the fact that it’s made up of three parts, ‘Child’, ‘Adolescent’ and ‘Adult’, it’s about growing up, even though the heroine is an adult for most of the novel. The opening chapters set the scene, and, in my case, made me enraged for Anne Lee. At the age of 16, looking forward to the Upper Sixth, perhaps being a prefect, playing sports and even taking exams for university, she is informed by her father that he’s pulling her out of school. A chauvinist, he doesn’t hold with educating his daughters beyond the age of 16, and begrudges having educated them that long. Bookish Anne is told to help her mother at home. In truth, she hibernates.
Knowing what was coming, her younger sisters either prepared better or, by nature, were rather glad to leave school at the same age. Anne is twenty-one when her life changes drastically again with the death of her father of a stroke. It turns out that his situation was more financially precarious than the family knew, and Anne will have to strike out on her own. It is agreed that she will become a nurse (although this is mainly because other occupations do not appeal, not because she shows any signs of it being a vocation.)
Here, Elder, or Olive Potter as she was really known, writes with real knowledge. Anne goes to London and, after a few weeks of training, starts working as a probationer at St Edmund’s hospital. Intelligent, hard-working, somewhat naïve, she has to learn the rules, written and unwriiten. Nurses (although nobody really is a nurse, either they’re probationers, staff-nurses, sisters or, ultimately, matrons) are in a strange position, expected to live a cloistered life. Doctors (mostly men, certainly at St Edmund’s) are more educated and must be deferred to, and yet, it is nurses’ care that ensures patients get well after their treatments have been carried out.
Anne is moved from ward to ward, gaining experience, but because of her personality – finding gossip trivial, thirsty for knowledge – she does not always get on with some of her seniors. One staff-nurse in particular is a veritable enemy. Throw in sex, as Anne develops a friendship with a resident who will answer her questions, and Anne’s progress is hampered not because of the standard of her work, which is good, but because the senior nurses accuse her of doing what they would like to be doing or even are doing. A friendship that could have been a romance, but wasn’t, is ended, and Anne eventually progresses to become a staff-nurse. But when an opening comes up for the position sister, the old rumour is held against her and the post goes to her former enemy (who is a good nurse, but hardly well liked, which causes its own problems.)
And so Anne resigns, and becomes a sister at a children’s hospital, but her beginning there is not auspicious. The ward she is in charge of was left in a state. Well-trained Anne finds it dirty, and as a result of that, not trusted to take care of post-operative patients. She throws herself into turning it around with zeal, but may not have made the best first impression in the hospital at large. But here, at Princess Ida’s, there are a few female doctors, one of whom is Miss Thorn, and a resident named Ashe who gets on well with children. They help her to show what Jack Horner ward can do under her, and in these two doctors, who are younger than her, Anne finds friendship – having been hurt in the past by a disappointing man and his snobbish family. Her inferiority complex because nurses are ‘half-educated’ and her father’s choices for his daughters mostly fades.
But life moves on, there are changes. Miss Thorn is rotated elsewhere, and the nature of Anne’s relationship with Thorn changes. Petty restrictions almost force them into declaring their love and going off for a weekend together that doesn’t quite go as she planned, neither does the aftermath. But at twenty-eight, Anne is engaged to Tony, despite being five years older than him and knowing they’ll have to wait 18 months to marry.
She’s at the heart of nursing gossip again, but finds support from the matron, who appreciates that Anne is a good teacher who has brought her ward up to the standard. Anne is given leave, and when Betty Thorn, who turns up to have grown up alongside Tony Ashe, invites her to her home, Anne accepts gladly – her relationship with her remaining family having been strained because of her younger sister’s love affair.
On what was meant to be a week’s holiday, Anne is able to help, for Betty catches pneumonia, and Anne’s nursing skills turn things around, leading to Anne joining Betty as she convalesces at Betty’s older brother’s farm. There, sitting in a cherry tree (a moment that resonated as a fan of Elder’s Farm School books), Anne has to face the questions that have been worrying her squarely. Is she not too old for Tony, is he not too much of a dear boy for her not to mother him rather than be his wife? She is good at her career, it is a worthwhile one, even if it is hard and demanding. There are examples of sisters and matrons who have not become so narrow that they are bitter, which she wants to avoid, but there are other – fewer – examples of women who stuck with it and remain admirable. She has decisions to make and to live with.
At the beginning of the book, I thought the title, which gives away the ending, might mean that Anne would resign and train to be a doctor. (I was so enraged by her father!) The realism of the book reminded me that you needed money to train, and these were different times, the book was first published in 1931, when women doctors were very new creatures. It looked increasingly likely that she would resign to be a wife, what many of her colleagues yearn for, although not Anne. What she’s looking for is fulfilment. Through her sister Angela and the nurse she was friendliest with, Anne sees the downsides of letting passion reign. There are subtle hints about other reasons why Tony Ashe might not be the most suitable husband for Anne, and when we find out why she resigns, it is satisfying.
Ultimately, then, this really wasn’t a career novel, although it depicts nursing in the late 1920s, early 1930s with plenty of realistic detail about medical care and treatment at the time. It was clearly a professional world that weas developing, partly because of scientific development, and because the role of women was changing. But really, this is a backdrop to reading about a young woman entering the world of work, growing as a person and deciding what kind of adult she wants to be.
Sister Anne Resigns: Josephine Elder. Greyladies 2012
In a way, this is a career novel, but in another, emphasised by the fact that it’s made up of three parts, ‘Child’, ‘Adolescent’ and ‘Adult’, it’s about growing up, even though the heroine is an adult for most of the novel. The opening chapters set the scene, and, in my case, made me enraged for Anne Lee. At the age of 16, looking forward to the Upper Sixth, perhaps being a prefect, playing sports and even taking exams for university, she is informed by her father that he’s pulling her out of school. A chauvinist, he doesn’t hold with educating his daughters beyond the age of 16, and begrudges having educated them that long. Bookish Anne is told to help her mother at home. In truth, she hibernates.
Knowing what was coming, her younger sisters either prepared better or, by nature, were rather glad to leave school at the same age. Anne is twenty-one when her life changes drastically again with the death of her father of a stroke. It turns out that his situation was more financially precarious than the family knew, and Anne will have to strike out on her own. It is agreed that she will become a nurse (although this is mainly because other occupations do not appeal, not because she shows any signs of it being a vocation.)
Here, Elder, or Olive Potter as she was really known, writes with real knowledge. Anne goes to London and, after a few weeks of training, starts working as a probationer at St Edmund’s hospital. Intelligent, hard-working, somewhat naïve, she has to learn the rules, written and unwriiten. Nurses (although nobody really is a nurse, either they’re probationers, staff-nurses, sisters or, ultimately, matrons) are in a strange position, expected to live a cloistered life. Doctors (mostly men, certainly at St Edmund’s) are more educated and must be deferred to, and yet, it is nurses’ care that ensures patients get well after their treatments have been carried out.
Anne is moved from ward to ward, gaining experience, but because of her personality – finding gossip trivial, thirsty for knowledge – she does not always get on with some of her seniors. One staff-nurse in particular is a veritable enemy. Throw in sex, as Anne develops a friendship with a resident who will answer her questions, and Anne’s progress is hampered not because of the standard of her work, which is good, but because the senior nurses accuse her of doing what they would like to be doing or even are doing. A friendship that could have been a romance, but wasn’t, is ended, and Anne eventually progresses to become a staff-nurse. But when an opening comes up for the position sister, the old rumour is held against her and the post goes to her former enemy (who is a good nurse, but hardly well liked, which causes its own problems.)
And so Anne resigns, and becomes a sister at a children’s hospital, but her beginning there is not auspicious. The ward she is in charge of was left in a state. Well-trained Anne finds it dirty, and as a result of that, not trusted to take care of post-operative patients. She throws herself into turning it around with zeal, but may not have made the best first impression in the hospital at large. But here, at Princess Ida’s, there are a few female doctors, one of whom is Miss Thorn, and a resident named Ashe who gets on well with children. They help her to show what Jack Horner ward can do under her, and in these two doctors, who are younger than her, Anne finds friendship – having been hurt in the past by a disappointing man and his snobbish family. Her inferiority complex because nurses are ‘half-educated’ and her father’s choices for his daughters mostly fades.
But life moves on, there are changes. Miss Thorn is rotated elsewhere, and the nature of Anne’s relationship with Thorn changes. Petty restrictions almost force them into declaring their love and going off for a weekend together that doesn’t quite go as she planned, neither does the aftermath. But at twenty-eight, Anne is engaged to Tony, despite being five years older than him and knowing they’ll have to wait 18 months to marry.
She’s at the heart of nursing gossip again, but finds support from the matron, who appreciates that Anne is a good teacher who has brought her ward up to the standard. Anne is given leave, and when Betty Thorn, who turns up to have grown up alongside Tony Ashe, invites her to her home, Anne accepts gladly – her relationship with her remaining family having been strained because of her younger sister’s love affair.
On what was meant to be a week’s holiday, Anne is able to help, for Betty catches pneumonia, and Anne’s nursing skills turn things around, leading to Anne joining Betty as she convalesces at Betty’s older brother’s farm. There, sitting in a cherry tree (a moment that resonated as a fan of Elder’s Farm School books), Anne has to face the questions that have been worrying her squarely. Is she not too old for Tony, is he not too much of a dear boy for her not to mother him rather than be his wife? She is good at her career, it is a worthwhile one, even if it is hard and demanding. There are examples of sisters and matrons who have not become so narrow that they are bitter, which she wants to avoid, but there are other – fewer – examples of women who stuck with it and remain admirable. She has decisions to make and to live with.
At the beginning of the book, I thought the title, which gives away the ending, might mean that Anne would resign and train to be a doctor. (I was so enraged by her father!) The realism of the book reminded me that you needed money to train, and these were different times, the book was first published in 1931, when women doctors were very new creatures. It looked increasingly likely that she would resign to be a wife, what many of her colleagues yearn for, although not Anne. What she’s looking for is fulfilment. Through her sister Angela and the nurse she was friendliest with, Anne sees the downsides of letting passion reign. There are subtle hints about other reasons why Tony Ashe might not be the most suitable husband for Anne, and when we find out why she resigns, it is satisfying.
Ultimately, then, this really wasn’t a career novel, although it depicts nursing in the late 1920s, early 1930s with plenty of realistic detail about medical care and treatment at the time. It was clearly a professional world that weas developing, partly because of scientific development, and because the role of women was changing. But really, this is a backdrop to reading about a young woman entering the world of work, growing as a person and deciding what kind of adult she wants to be.
