George Harrison’s old house has an interesting backstory | Nursing

Peter Bradshaw missed an important cultural aspect of Letchmore Heath (“The Village of the Damned was filmed here – then George Harrison bought a house”: our nominations for UK cultural city, January 23). Before Piggott’s Manor was sold to George Harrison, it was the preliminary training school at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in Smithfield, London, where 18-year-old future nurses spent three months before being let loose on real patients – learning to bandage, give bed baths and change sheets with the ‘patient’ still inside (practicing on each other), give injections (in oranges), to present the food in an appetizing manner and – above all – to clean.

After this three-month period, we spent the next two and three quarters years in the wards (in the form of an apprenticeship) doing real nursing work, more complex and more responsible. We are a long way from the major cultural change in today’s nursing training, provided in universities and in internships.
Dr Liz Rolls-Firth
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire