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The Florence Nightingale Effect
The Florence Nightingale Effect
1982 - 17 Years Old
We had learned about Florence Nightingale in our history class, with Mr. Shrimpkin, trying as he always did, whenever he could, to use it as an excuse to discuss Catholic concepts of charity and/or the glories of the British Empire.
Even though, for most of empire, we Catholics were generally considered second-class citizens.
But harp on as he might, our concept of nurses was informed less by “The Lady of the Lamp” than by Carry On Nurse.
Everybody was convinced (at least all of the lads I knew) that nurses always wore intricate and lacy lingerie underneath their form-fitting outfits.
They were scrumptious.
And it was every teenage boys goal to have it off, or at least to get off, with a nurse. (For non-Brits, it might be a good idea to check out the glossary below).
And what was every nurse’s dream? I’m not sure. But for some of them – alright, at least one of them – it was to have it off with Roland Orzabal.
Most of the people I knew had a famous doppelgänger, at least in my mind –Singhy looked like Mick Karn (from the group Japan), Kate looked like Annabella (Bow Wow Wow), Kieran looked like David Sylvian (also Japan), and Gary Isham looked like Herman Munster. You can see all of this quite plainly, if you have ever visited the Cast section of this blog.
And my doppelgänger was Roland Orzabal from the group Tears For Fears.
The one on the left, in case you didn’t know.
So much so that several years later, I was semi-mobbed after a Tears For Fears concert in Oklahoma City by girls convinced I was him. Trying to explain the mistaken identity with an English accent didn’t help.
I liked Tears For Fears, but not enough to spend money on one of their albums. But I do really like, and did buy, their single, Mad World:
And I was dancing like Roland does at about 1:48 in the video. In the same 3-quid Oxfam overcoat. At the New Year’s Eve party that our wine-bar hangout, The Rain, was hosting.
The Rain could comfortably fit about 120 people on its 2 floors. 150, in a pinch and if everybody was behaving.
They had sold 200 tickets to the party.
There were all sorts of people crammed in there. Some regulars, but not too many. Most of them preferred to avoid the tourists – the people who would only show up to big events at The Rain to hone their “edgy” credentials.
But the upside was that there was a bunch of girls we’d never met before.
I drank gin and tonics instead of beer. Partly because it was New Year’s Eve; partly because I didn’t want to spend most of my night standing in the 30-minute line for the toilet.
I chatted up various girls trying to figure out what my options were, but the decision was made for me at the stroke of midnight, when a girl planted a big one on me out of the blue.
We chatted for about an hour, her sitting on my lap and laughing at my jokes and pretending to understand why I was calling her Nurse Ratched (I don’t think she had seen One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest).
We hit it off swimmingly, and we soon left for her place.
The nurse’s dorm at Horton General Hospital.
* * *
I hadn’t expected to have been woken up so early. Or, more importantly, in such a manner. I had sort of hoped for a cup of tea and maybe a nice bacon roll from the canteen.
And a bit of a chat.
Instead, a student nurse woke me up by running through the corridors screaming “Matron!”
The next thing I knew, Anne was standing over me. She threw my stuff at me. “You need to leave.”
She was lovely. This wasn’t a Brunhilde thing.
“Now!”
So much for bedside manner, I thought to myself as I climbed through the only way out, a window, and jumped to the frosty ground.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one getting their vitals checked that night. Definitely two, maybe three, other guys were climbing out of other windows, and they joined me legging it across the quad in various states of undress, carrying the rest of their stuff that they hadn’t had time to put on.
One lad was barefoot.
On one side, a group of older guys, probably janitors, maintenance guys, and delivery drivers were smoking their fags. They cheered us loudly.
On the other side, a group of doctors, smoking their pipes, nodded at us. Their eyes twinkling with the memories of their youth.
I ended up at the bus station cafe (the only place in town that was open) with Declan, a fellow new initiate to the I-shagged-a-nurse-but-my-friends-won’t-believe-me club.
And we celebrated this milestone with a cup of tea and a bacon roll.
GLOSSARY
Some terms, words, things that might not be familiar to our non-British audience.
To chat up – to talk with the goal of making a romantic connection.
Fags – cigarettes.
To get off with – snogging, or, as the Americans might say, heavy petting.
To have it off with – to have sex with.
To harp on – to talk endlessly (usually about something nobody’s interest in).
To leg it – to run. Usually, for your life.
Oxfam – the quintessential British charity shop.
Quid – a British pound.
To shag – to have sex with.
THE SONG:
TEARS FOR FEARS
MAD WORLD
1982
UK CHART POSITION: #3
