About Me — Ordinary Madness
A council-estate girl, a fifteen-minute bus ride, and the accidental choice that shaped a lifetime.
Where I Come From
I grew up on a council estate in England, the eldest of five, in a house where shouting was the soundtrack and silence meant someone was likely angry, possibly at you.
By fourteen I already knew that if I stayed, I’d end up repeating that pattern. Leaving wasn’t rebellion; it was self-preservation.
The Bus Ride That Changed Everything
I remember that moment of realisation well. I was sitting on the top deck of an old double-decker bus on a rainy Friday afternoon. The lower deck was crammed, so I was forced to take a seat upstairs, which I didn’t like to do when it was busy, as that was where the smokers gathered, and I had enough passive smoking at home, thanks very much.
I sat quietly, looking out of the window for the fifteen-minute journey, picking up snippets of conversation from the housewives rushing home with their groceries to get their husbands’ tea ready (dinner to the poshies) when it happened. We were just passing the park, and I suddenly realised that the only topic these women had to talk about, it seemed to me at least, was what they were going to cook that night and how much they had just paid at the shops for it.
No, no, no. I screamed to myself, I do not want this. I want something different. Something more. Was it even possible? Could girls from dysfunctional, poor families ever make something of themselves? Dare I even try? Could I? Should I?
It was a completely pivotal moment in my life, and as my thoughts crashed through my head, I came to the realisation that if I wanted something different, then I had to make it happen rather than allow life to happen to me. I arrived home after that fifteen-minute bus ride a different girl. I knew I was going to have a different life from my parents, and even though I didn’t know how it would happen, it could not come soon enough.
A Career Chosen by Chance
Some time later, I was in a so-called “careers lesson” at school — so dull that most students didn’t pay attention. One day the teacher said we were to go into the careers library and pick a leaflet about the job we wanted, then write an essay on it, including the route to getting there.
I was clueless. I was still at the stage of wanting to be a scientist one day and an artist the next. Shy me joined the rest of the class in the “library,” which was really just a classroom with a large table piled high with brochures. Everyone crowded around, and I couldn’t get a look in. I was behind the taller kids, so I did the only thing I could think of: I went fishing.
I flung my arm over the tall blond boy’s shoulder, reached down, opened and closed my hand like one of those grabber machines at the amusement arcades, and finally managed to snatch a booklet. I didn’t know what it was until I pulled my hand back and saw that it was all about nursing as a career choice.
I thought to myself, that’ll do, having no idea that single moment of aimless fishing would lead to a forty-year career — but that’s what happened.
That small, ridiculous moment, one blind grab, changed everything, though it would take years for me to realise how completely.
What I Would Find Instead
I didn’t picture myself in a uniform or imagine hospitals. I was thinking of clean sheets, quiet rooms, and order — the opposite of home. What I would find instead was noise, chaos, and people who needed you in ways you couldn’t have planned for. It would be exhausting and sometimes ridiculous, but it would also be the first place I would feel useful for reasons that belonged to me.
Planning My Escape
So I duly read the booklet, wrote my essay, and realised this could be my escape route. My parents would never want me to leave. I was too useful. I cooked, cleaned, and cared for my two smallest brothers — six months and two years old. They needed me. And who would babysit when my parents went to the pub at weekends?
So I plotted my escape plan. It was simple: pick a school of nursing that wasn’t in my home city but not so far away that they would refuse. In those days we tended to do what our parents said, not like now. I needed reasons why it was better than the local one; otherwise they’d insist I stay at home, still at their service.
When the time came, I picked a city about fifteen miles away. It had a new, much-talked-about teaching hospital, which gave me my excuse for leaving and, though I never said it aloud, my reason for “living in” rather than living at home. I applied and was accepted. My training was due to start on 8 April 1982, eight days after my eighteenth birthday.
My birthday present from my parents, which traditionally would have been “the key of the door,” was a suitcase. Make of that what you will.
Leaving and Beginning
And so it was that I left home — green, shy, terrified, and excited to forge a life beyond the noise I’d grown up in.
I didn’t choose nursing because I was called to care; I chose it because it was a way out. But somewhere between the wards and the night shifts, it became something more: a way to understand people and, eventually, myself.
That accidental grab on a rainy afternoon turned into a lifetime of listening, observing, and trying to make sense of ordinary madness.
Author Note:
This is my About Me story. I write true tales about nursing, life, and the ordinary madness that comes with both. You can find more of my work on my Medium profile.
