Hannah “Nancy” O’Driscoll was remarkable in many ways but like most nurses from the last century she remains largely unknown. She was a nurse midwife with the Frontier Nursing Service in Kentucky which had been modelled on the Highlands and… Read More ›
nursing history
Call the Midwife Christmas Special (2)
Part one of this quiz was about nurses. This is part two aimed more at film and TV buffs. CtM was really well filmed – something new for the Hebrides? Nope. Two of the greatest cinematographers cut the their teeth… Read More ›
Call the Midwife Christmas special
Tens of millions around the world will tune in to the Call the Midwife special on Christmas Day. It’s set in the Outer Hebrides in late 1964. Here’s part one of a wee quiz to tease out the history. Part… Read More ›
Every picture tells a history
I’ve always thought this is the best photograph of a nurse I’d ever seen. The sheer joy in the midwife’s face is utterly captivating. I first came across it as postcard in the Florence Nightingale Museum at St Thomas’s, as… Read More ›
Sister Dora – the first female statue?
The first public statue for a woman in Britain turns up in an unlikely place. Walsall is an industrial town in the Black Country north of Birmingham. I have a lot of affection for it – it’s where I did… Read More ›