It Won't Hurt a Bit: Nursing Tales from the Swinging Sixties

by Jane Yeadon

When Jane Yeadon decided that she wanted to become a nurse, the Swinging Sixties had arrived in style. But before her training the nearest she got to anything swinging was the udder of the cow on their farm in the northeast of Scotland. It was time to leave for the bright lights and some modern life. It Won't Hurt a Bit  is the story of Jane's journey from the farm she loved and the schoolwork she hated through to her nurse training and the many adventures along the way. It's a warm, funny, and affectionate memoir from a simpler time as Jane and her new friends tackle the ups and downs of a grueling three-year training, some scary matrons, and a variety of challenging patients and their relatives, all to the backdrop of the fabulous Swinging Sixties.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2010

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2⭐ = below average.

I was hoping for a lot more humorous events on the ward. 🤕 I've had plenty... perhaps I should write a book🤔

[Josephine (Jo) · Rating 2 out of 5]

An o.k. book but not really up to expectation in my case. Although set in the 'swinging sixties' there is little mention of all the exciting things that were going on at the time. This would have been fine if the life in the hospital during training had been really interesting or exciting but it was not either. There was none of the grittiness of Call The Midwife, no real emergencies. The book was neither dramatic nor funny. The amusing anecdotes were only mildly funny and the supposedly dramatic parts were not really dramatic. Altogether a bit tepid.

[Helena Huang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I think there was a call the midwife fan who wrote another positive review. I am also a call the midwife and I think that all fans of call the midwife will really appreciate this book. Call the midwife book was written by Jennifer Lee, and the first three seasons of the CTM TV series are centred in around her. However, CTM only talks about the Nonnatus House midwives experience in their job as district midwives, and doesn't talk about their experiences as a student nurse. CTM book starts with Jenny Lee already qualified and starting her midwifery practicum at Nonnatus House This book can be seen as a prequel to CTM book. Time wise, this book is a little later than call the midwife. CTM is in 1962 currently and in it's 6th season. This book starts in 1962 where 17 year old Jane is about to leave high school to start her nursing journey. She is about 10 years younger than the midwives on CTM. It ends in about 1966. Some of the medical conditions mentioned in this book were also shown in call the midwife, such as Typhoid. Career wise, we know she is going down the same path as Midwife Jenny Lee, as she is going to train as a midwife and district nurse in the next book. I'm looking forward to the next books, but will have to wait for the inter library loan to come through in a month. Next book will be more like call the midwife, as she will be training as a midwife in Belfast. In the meantime I can preview the book on goodreads.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I set myself the challenge this year to read more non-fiction, and this was a good way to round out the year. The best nursing memoir I've read so far; Yeadon actually focusses on the training itself, from classes with nursing tutors to hands-on work on the wards. Her use of humour is effective but I got less impression that the author was trying to tell a good story at the expense of reality than I have with other books. Growing up, young women in my area had three basic career choices outside of marriage and family: you became a nurse, a secretary or a teacher. (Women who were reduced to working at the supermarket checkout and bagging groceries were considered more to be pitied than censured, particularly if they were married). There were many nurses in my own family as well as their friends, and this memoir chimes with the tales they told out of hospital, though in the US nurses in training weren't expected to live on-site.

[Jo Marlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Read

Recommend by MIL whom is a actually related to this Jane Yeadon.
Book 2 downloaded & waiting to be read

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Scottish text made it quite difficult to understand in places.

[glittering reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

the book is readable and can enjoy it, but not the best nursing book I have read. I wont read it again and will give it away to someone when finished it. giving it three stars

[Sho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having recently read a nursing memoir, and being in hospital I decided to give this one a try. It was the Kindle Deal of the Day a couple of weeks ago and I'm always a sucker for a memoir.

This time it was about a trainee nurse in Aberdeen in the 1960s and it was written in an engaging way, with more emphasis on Jane's life and her colleagues than the actual training (although there are some great descriptions of lectures etc).

It is all to easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking that the Swinging Sixties was all flower-power, loon pants and long hair anywhere apart from a few urban centres and mostly Carnaby Street. This novel isn't only describing nursing but how some people still didn't have inside toilets or even electricity and running water in some cases.

There is a small amount of Aberdonian dialect which I just don't understand but it isn't much and doesn't disturb at all. At least I know what a Quinie is now.

Along with One Pair of Feet by Monica Dickens (which describes nursing during the first world war) I can thoroughly recommend this as a good read.

[Sarah Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a nurse myself it always interests me how the matron era had it, you hear stories from patients and older staff members along the way, but yet somehow I expected more... There is little talk about the swinging sixties and while I know that a student nurse forgoes a social life, as it was billed as set in this era I had expected some of that. and was to be honest disappointed it didn't live up to that expectation.

[Hillary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had deja vu reading this book. Perhaps I have simply read too many similar memoirs? The author's naivete and excitement were clear in the beginning, and by the end I did have a good sense of how she had developed and matured - but the book lacks any real depth. She kind of glosses over a lot of detail. If you're only going to read one nursing memoir of this type, I'd go with Call the Midwife. If you're bored on vacation and just need to kill some time, this is fine, if relatively unexciting.

[Juliana Graham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. I didn't think this book was very well written which you can overlook if the story is really engaging, but it wasn't. Not really much in the way of hospital drama and no sense of the time either. Quite bland. Call the Midwife is much, much better.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, fast read, about nursing in the 1960s

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

was an ok read, interesting but had to read it bit by bit

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Begint niet zo goed, maar wordt langzaamaan steeds beter. Yeadon is duidelijk verpleegkundige en géén schrijfster: springt van de hak op de tak, introduceert personages totaal niet en doet niet aan verhaalopbouw. De tijdgeest maakt het verhaal echter wel interessant, waardoor ik deel 2 toch ook wil lezen.