Friday, February 21, 2014

NURSING IN LONDON'S EAST END POST WORLD WAR II


READ ABOUT JEAN FULLERTON AND HER MOVE FROM VICTORIAN NOVELS TO STORIES OF POST-WAR EAST LONDON NURSING
Jean was born in East London and in 2006 she won the Harry Bowling prize, giving her an agent and a contract with Orion. After four award-winning Victorian novels Jean jumped forward to post-war East London with her fifth, Call Nurse Millie, released last year. The second in the series, All Change for Nurse Millie, is now out and she as just finished the third. 

Nurse Millie Sullivan is now Nurse Millie Smith, married to aspiring MP Jim Smith. NHS has just started, so nurses are busier than ever as the community realise that they no longer have to pay. Minor ailments need attention, babies need to be helped into the world and larger-than-life characters need keeping in line so Millie has enough drama to deal with without more at home...and Alex Nolan, her ex-fiancé, is back in town.

All Change for Nurse Millie has just been published. Was it hard to find another storyline to carry Millie into book three?                                           
Thankfully not. I’d plotted the storyline for the second book and the first book of Connie’s alongside Call Nurse Millie to too ensure continuity. Of course, things changed as I wrote it but it’s about getting the timelines to stay true.

Christmas with Nurse Millie was easy because I already had student nurse, Annie, in Call Nurse Millie and the O’Toole family in All Change for Nurse Millie so I just bought both thread together for the Christmas Novella.   
Your first books are set in the 1800s and your later ones post WW2. Which time period do you prefer?
I’m not really sure. I’ve loved all things historical since Roger Moore galloped across our 9” TV screen in Ivanhoe. Each book I write is like a history project. In the post-war books is I am able to bring much more family history into them as it’s the period my parents lived though. For them things were always before or after the war. My father fought in Africa in the 8th Army while my mother endured the blitz and was even trapped in the Bethnal Green Tube disaster.
How do you carry out your research?
I go back to primary sources as much as possible. I must have every 20th century nursing biography good, bad and dire. I also have a sizable selection of 1940/50s nursing, midwifery and medical text books which I base the nursing elements of the story on plus my own 25 years of nursing knowledge.
Would you like to have worked with Nurse Millie?
I think Nurse Millie worked much harder than I ever worked and for less pay. Nursing was a vocation not a job. In Millie’s fictional timeline she started training in 1937. At that time a nursing career meant foregoing marriage and children, Thankfully for Millie - and my story - WW2 changed that as post-war there was a shortage of nurses. To read more fully the differences between Millie’s working life in East London and mine visit My time as a District Nurse    
How do you fit your writing around your busy home life?
Goodness only knows. I still work full-time and I write in the evenings and Saturday, aiming for 1500 or a scene a day. That way I don’t forget what I’ve written the last time. It’s the only way. Sadly, 124,000 words don’t write themselves.
What is next in your writing life?
I’ve just finished the first book of Nurse Connie Byrne’s story and will be starting her second in a month or two. Then who knows but I’m certain whatever I write after that it will be set in East London.   
Jean’s website: www.jeanfullerton.com

Many thanks for chatting with us today, Jean.
Compiled by Natalie and brought to you by the blogging team of Elaine Everest, Natalie Kleinman and Liv Thomas.

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