Long ago and far away...confession time

 Long ago it certainly was, over forty years ago, and far away for me now as I live in Brazil and this occurred in London. At the time I was a student nurse, therefore unqualified, and my then husband was a psychiatric nurse. He was earning extra money doing agency work as nurses` pay was always low, then as now.

I can´t remember why after all this time but one day my husband asked me to stand in for him, to look after his current patient pretending I was from the agency. How the young are reckless! I looked on it as a bit of a lark and went along with the idea with little thought to the possible very serious consequences of my action.

The patient was a Lord and lived in Lambeth Palace and was a very well-known public figure. I duly presented myself at the Palace dressed in my husband´s white coat. The Lord was elderly and somewhat confused but in reasonable health so my duties were light. I think the only medical thing I had to do was give him his medicine, thank goodness.

He was a difficult patient though. At one point he was sat in the hall on an upright chair, insisting he was waiting for a train, and would not come to eat the lunch I had helped prepare, despite my and his wife´s coaxing. When he eventually stood up I was amazed at how tall and strong he was. He towered over me and I´m 5`7". Eventually we got him to the table where he wouldn´t eat the "rubbish" before him. I´d tried to make something healthy as his diet sounded pretty dire.

Anyway, the day eventually came to an end and I left. When I look back now I can´t believe what I did! If anything had gone wrong I could have been in very serious trouble indeed. The Lord survived for another couple of years, despite my ministrations, and I guess after all this time I can ´fess up without getting into trouble.