How London’s Swinging Sixties inspired nurse Eira Bish’s IngramSpark publication
For retired nurse Eira Battaglia (nee Bish) writing her memoir The Silver Buckle was a natural extension of reminiscing about her student days.
Her 50 years of nursing started at South London’s St Giles’ Hospital during the momentous Swinging Sixties and included working in England, Canada and Australia.
Eira also trained nurses for 30 years and said today’s students were fascinated by her tales of an earlier era of nursing.
“I consider I have had a rich, wonderful career that my three years as a trainee in the 1960s was able to allow me to do so many things,” she said.
In this week’s case study, Eira shares more about her self-published book, the steps she took to have it published plus tips for new writers looking to do the same…
1 A story of new beginnings
Motivations behind the book
The memoir came as a result of thoughts about my days as a trainee nurse in London.
It was reinforced by the television series of Call The Midwife, which I found evocative and one I could relate to, even though the original series was set in the East End of London in the late 1950s and I began my training in mid 1960s.
When teaching various procedures to young nurses, I would often relate stories of my days as a student nurse and talk about how different it was to theirs.
Many of the procedures we did then were consigned to the history books of nursing, such as testing urine with fizzing tablets and keeping patients in beds for six weeks following heart attacks.
They were always interested and asked me questions about my time as a student nurse, and laughed when I told them stories of strict home sisters, rules and regulations that wouldn’t be tolerated by modern nurses.
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Chat turns into a career
I had an unpleasant spell in hospital as a child, which left memories of separation from my parents, uncompassionate nurses and being treated without care or any love.
I decided if I was a nurse I would be much kinder to children than I had been treated.
The memoir begins before I began my training, when working at a large frozen food company’s head office in my hometown.
I worked in the typing pool as a 15-year-old, shy and lacking in confidence.
Later I became restless and knew I did not want to work in offices for the rest of my life.
I had always been interested in nursing but believed I wasn’t good enough in mathematics to try to enter nurse training.
It was after a discussion with the nurse in the company sick bay, where I had gone seeking help for a headache, that I mentioned my hope to be a nurse and how I might achieve that dream despite the headmistress of my high school insisting I could never be a nurse as my maths wasn’t good enough.
The nurse replied if she could succeed there was no reason why I couldn’t.
She gave me the address of her training school, St Giles’ Hospital in Camberwell, South East London.
It was a general hospital of around 300 beds and she felt it had given her a good basic training.
I eventually wrote to the hospital requesting an interview.
Telling a complete story
The memoir covers the years of my training, beginning in January of 1965 with my first meeting of the formidable Home Sister.
Over the three years of training, I talked of not only my experiences during my training but of my personal life as a young woman living in London and how I coped with various events, such as my first death, boyfriends and the friendships that were made.
Accompanying the stories are photos throughout the book, which often say more than words.
I began with a prologue to show why I decided to become a nurse and ended the memoir with an epilogue to give readers an idea of life after graduation.
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2 Favourite nurse stories from the memoir
I have a couple of favourite stories in the book.
The final part when I graduated and could use the initials SRN behind my name!
And I enjoyed telling the story of my first day at St Giles, which was a day on a ward.
It began with the first time I put on the uniform, wrestling with the bits and pieces and then a final look at myself, which was awe-inspiring.
Gone was my miniskirt and shoes. I was now dressed in the long, blue dress, apron fastened and a cap sitting on my head.
Another first for that day was a dead body being wheeled out of the ward as I was about to enter.
I hoped it wasn’t a bad omen.
It turned out to be a wonderful day, working on a ward full of patients and with other nurses who taught me new procedures.
I would learn so much more in the coming weeks of Preliminary Training School, which began on my 18th birthday!
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3 From memories to nurse memoir
Getting started
I attended a few creative writing courses and got suggestions on writing memoirs.
This gave me ideas regarding what should be included and how it should be set out (eg spacing, page layout).
One suggestion was to write down films and popular records of the time to reinforce the story, which I did, and was a useful resource.
I began to write down some ideas about my time as a student nurse.
I also had a folder with information and ideas.
After three years of trying to set down memories and wondering where to go from there, I saw a one-day course advertised, which was about self-publishing books, especially memoirs.
It was held by a published author, who had self-published her books.
After the course I began to word process my memoir … and eventually I was ready to have the manuscript edited.
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Crafting and polishing
I found an editing company in Brisbane, Australia, who offered to edit my manuscript for around $1000, depending on the number of words.
When it was returned, I was devastated to see the huge amount of red all over the document!
Hell, what had I done!
There were many comments in the side, which I read through.
The editor gave me a variety of ideas of how the document could be improved, not just errors of format, spelling and grammar but of content.
She also discussed the need for dialogue, which she felt would improve the storytelling better than just exposition and description.
It would make the memoir more interesting with less telling.
That was a surprise and I wondered if I could change various passages to dialogue.
After all it was over 50 years since I had lived in London and I wasn’t sure if I could put in realistic dialogue.
She also commented I should remove passages about my family and childhood because it was a memoir about my days as a student nurse.
That removed almost one chapter!
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Preparing to publish
I was then ready to get the memoir published but I wasn’t too sure of the process.
So I contacted the lecturer whose course I had attended.
She was wonderfully helpful and sat down with me to discuss layout, font, colour of paper, and also the most important part, the cover and back page.
I wanted a photo of my silver buckle for the front cover, attached to my black belt, which was what I wore as a registered nurse.
My mother had given me the silver buckle as a graduation gift and as a 21st present, so it held special memories for me.
They are given to nurses when they graduate and become registered nurses.
Some are fancy, some are plain – as was mine.
Since my memoir was published and friends and family bought the book, they now notice the silver buckles nurses wear in the television series, which they probably wouldn’t have before.
The back page included (nursing memories and) a photo of me with three of my friends going to work on night duty dressed in our gabardine raincoats.
Then I went online to the publishing company IngramSpark, which gave detailed information about the various requirements to upload the manuscript.
Fortunately my mentor explained what was needed and made the necessary decisions.
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A milestone moment
When I received my copy to review, it was a memorable moment: I was so excited and proud!
After friends had ordered copies from me.
I then ordered a box of 28 books, which I sold at a discount price to all of my friends, donated to libraries and sent a signed copy to those who were part of my memoir.
It didn’t take long for the entire 28 copies to go.
4 Writing rewards and challenges
The hardest part about writing the book was editing the manuscript and being honest with myself.
Even though I had not considered using dialogue, I began to understand why it did improve the memoir.
The whole process of understanding the way the publishing/printing company operated and what was required was difficult for me to understand.
If I hadn’t have had the help and guidance of my mentor I would have given up.
However, the most rewarding part of the writing process was the pride in seeing the book when published.
Also the enjoyment my friends and family appeared to gain from my story.
I hadn’t written it to make money but to give people the opportunity to learn about my time as a student nurse and to share my story.
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5 Support for the book
Family backing
My parents and siblings died before the memoir was published so had no knowledge of it.
But my husband, son, nieces and nephews were all supportive, proud and each bought copies.
The saddest thing for me, however, was the loss of my long-time, dearest friend to whom I dedicated the memoir.
Unfortunately she had been unable to read the book before her death last year.
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Friends from afar
Other friends from my days as a student nurse who were mentioned I found hard to locate.
One Canadian I had lost contact with but fortunately, thanks to Facebook, I was able to re-establish contact.
I also found out my Sri Lankan (nurse) friend had died as a young woman.
Amazingly we may have worked in the same hospital in Brisbane!
Another Canadian friend I am in constant contact with … has many memories of our time at St Giles.
She has read my memoir and told her colleagues and recommended it to them.
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Friends close to home
I have a wonderful group of friends in Sydney whom I have known for 30 years.
All were excited about the publication of my memoir, which I was surprised about as many had never known me as a young woman.
Each of my friends bought a copy to show support for me.
One or two said it was “un-put-downable”!
My nieces in the UK loved the book as there were a number of references to their father, my dear brother.
And school friends in England also bought copies and gave lovely reviews on Amazon!
I was also interviewed by a local radio station about my memoir, which was an interesting experience.
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Final say
As Eira considers calls for a follow-up memoir, she had some parting words for those contemplating a similar project.
“Get a professional editor to look at the manuscript,” she said.
“Don’t rely on yourself or family members to review your work.
“They may not understand the subject matter, nor be able to be unprejudiced or be too critical.”
Eira also encouraged new writers to seek out help.
“Attend a course on creative writing or how to self-publish a book,” she said.
“Find someone who can help with the process, someone who understands what is needed.”
The Silver Buckle by Eira Bish can be ordered through Amazon, Booktopia and Angus & Robertson as ‘print on demand’.
Happy writing!
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This article first appeared on the website Forever Young Autobiographies.com.