During his later years, when he had spells in hospital, my dad was unstinting in his praise for the nurses who cared for him. “Angels”, he called them. Nursing was a calling, he reckoned, a vocation, while insisting that it was impossible to pay nurses what they deserved to be paid. Though his gratitude was genuine, the idea that nurses are “angels” seemed to provide an excuse for not giving them a pay-rise. The “food of the angels”, according to Exodus, was “manna from heaven”. Exodus failed to mention that angels have bills and mortgages to pay.
One day, once the pandemic is over, I hope we’ll be able to right some of the most glaring inequalities. Even if we can’t pay afford to pay nurses “what they’re worth”… hell, at least we can try.
Springtime comes to the village of Nun Monkton, near York...
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