CHRISTMAS EVE IN A HOSPITAL WARD

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21975, 26 December 1936, Page 5

CHRISTMAS EVE IN A HOSPITAL WARD

TO THE EDITO* 0» TH* PHESSSir,—As I was watching and praying one hour before dawn on Christmas morn, I espied our Santa Clausette going round with a tray of parcels and putting one on each pedestal. I lay still and I recalled the fairy tales of my first childhood —the storks (the one with the long neck; not the one carrying the mysterious package), the foxes and the geese, and the rest of them, along with Little Red Riding Hood ( I had just seen our Clausette in her red-lined hood). I was the first to open my package, and found that it was from the lady visitors, who gave us all scented soap and a facecloth—the gift being made perhaps '-with the idea of impressing upon us that cleanliness is next to godliness. I was relieved to find that the ladies made no distinctions in persons; also, I noticed that the eleventh-hour comer

got the same “pay” as one who had borne the heat and burden of the day and night for 14 weeks. If I had been the only recipient of the soap and facecloth.' the ladies would have had me guessing as to w r hether they thought me deficient in either excellent quality. But I have been guessing on another problem; whether it was Fate or my doctor's decree that kept me where I am. It may be that I scared the doctor some when I assured him that I would haunt him if I passed out with a surfeit of plum pudding (and kings have been known it die of surfeit). The doctor thought it would be safer to keep me in; so in I am. But. on the other hand. I was assured by one in high authority that I should have as many helpings as I called for. There was a twinkle in her eye when she said it, and she may have winked at my ward sister boss, who was standing by. I started my Bachanalia or Saturnalia (I'm not too sure of my pagan deities when I get among ’em) at dawn, by fixing up a dozen strawberries with surreptitiously secreted arrowroot, which makes an excellent mock cream. There has been quite a Christmas exodus from the ward, and we may eye the departing one with a tinge of wistfulness as he goes round with a sparkle in his eye looking a different being in mufti, with nis hat on. Ah! that hat, and all it signifies. The quondam (with emphasis) patient puts on his hat. and goes out to do what he darned well pleases. But, stay! What does all this festooning mean? There is some sort of spirit in the air—some pagan spirit, of pudding and such-like material things, striving with the spirit of Christianity? Hark! What was that? “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.” It is the nurses’ choir serenading us. There they are, packed into the approach corridor —50 or 60 smiling faces. It looked and sounded as if "a patch of heaven had slipped down to earth.” —Yours, etc., PETER TROLOVE. December 25, 1936.