Life Tips #17: Eileen, 92, Retired Nurse Matron

1. If there’s another Blitz, stay close to Belsize Park Tube Station. It’s one of the deepest in London. I was a trainee nurse at the Royal Free during WW2. We were evacuated to Epsom for the worst of the Blitz, but I remember the masses of people who would arrive from the East End every evening, hoping to shelter. Rows and rows of bunk beds lined the platforms and tunnels. Often in the morning when they returned home, their homes had been bombed and they were left with only the clothes they wore.

2. You have to work for everything in this life. When I arrived in England in 1937, I was only seventeen but I expected to work hard and I did. I earned a pound a month and I only had two days off.

3. Cut your cloth according to your material. People today want to have everything, even if they can’t afford it. It may be boring but we only ever bought something we could afford; we usually had to save for small luxuries. We didn’t have as much as people do today but we were never in such debt either.

4. Take every chance you get to go anywhere and everywhere.

5. Well made things last beautifully. I taught myself to sew through necessity. Eventually people began asking me to make dresses for them. I made a beautiful blue and silver patterned gown in 1949 which I wore with white, elbow length gloves to the Royal Free Hospital Ball in the Savoy. My grand-niece wore the same dress to her university ball last year.

6. Walk the Heath. I used to love it, whatever the weather. It’s amazing to have such wildness in the middle of London. And it’s never changed.

7. Girls, be careful. You know what I mean.

Words: Louise Hogan