The nursing hierarchy in 1979, the year I started nurse training, was awful; but even then, people yearned for the good old days in ways which some readers may accuse me of doing, should they ever get to the end of this article.

Did you sleep well? Tucked up in a cosy bed? Had a nice bath? Smelling sweet?

Such thoughts take me back fifty years to working in Casualty at the (now 'old') Westminster Hospital, London SW1...