The first all out nurses strike in London (?): Maudsley Hospital 1988

Striking nurses are in the news, a rare occasion but not unique. There was a wave of nurses strikes in Britain in 1988, starting with a one day walkout at North Manchester Hospital in January and spreading to hospitals in London and elsewhere. Nurses at the Maudsley Hospital in Denmark Hill were the first to strike in London, walking out for the day on 2 February 1988 a day ahead of a national day of action which saw strikes and protests in many places.

Above and below - pickets at the Maudsley on 2 February 1988

Militant, 5 February 1988

 

 The day of action on 3rd February included a march called by London hospital strike committees which was blocked by police in Whitehall with four arrests. I remember the demo moving to block the traffic on Westminster Bridge.  

Two weeks later on the 16th February there was a further day of action in London in which 12,000 hospital workers took part.  The day ended up with several hundred marching to the town hall in Brixton for a rally. Nurses at the Maudsley again went on strike.

Guardian, 17/2/1988

Another day of action on 14th March saw London bus crews, dockers, miners and others taking unofficial action in support of NHS workers. I was working at Lambeth Council at the time and some of us marched to join the protests outside the Maudsley Hospital and Kings Hospital on the other side of the road. I think it was on this day that I took these two rather poor pictures!

'we care, do you?- Kings Hospital, 1988

Pickets in the rain outside the Maudsley

Guardian, 15 March 1988

 It was very much a rank and file led movement with nurses at individual hospitals organising one day strikes and days of action with limited support from national unions. Nurses were divided between three unions- NUPE (National Union of Public Employees), COHSE (Confederation of Health Service Employees) and the Royal College of Nursing. The RCN was opposed to action, though many of its members argued at the time for it to change its no strike policy; the leaderships of the other unions were decidedly lukewarm. The TUC did call a big demonstration in support of the health service on 5th March, with a crowd of up to 100,000 in Hyde Park, though some angry nurses tried to storm the stage to speak as no health workers had been invited to address the crowd

The movement was largely successful. The Government had been planning to offer a 3% pay rise and was also intending to scrap national pay bargaining. In the event a new clinical grading structure resulted in average pay increases of 15%.

Concerns about whether the pay rises would actually be implemented led to another walk out at the Maudsley in September. This was one of the the first indefinite strikes by nurses in Britain, lasting for 12 days from 5 September 1988. 

Guardian, 6 September 1988

'Maudsley Hospital Nurses Strike... the strike is aimed at forcing the government to honour its promise made in May of this year to fully fund the new Clinical Grading system'

'COHSE Maudsley 898 Branch Strike Bulletin - A massive vote of congratulations to all those COHSE members who have contributed to making the first week of the (first ever) indefinite strike by Nurses such a huge success... The sunny weather and generous donations from passers by on Denmark Hill have confirmed that the public (and God!) are behind our struggle to get nurses the rewards they deserve to protect patient services from Tory policies'

As with all strikes in the NHS, workers did not simply abandon patients. As detailed above there was an agreement in place for strikers to provide cover in emergencies or if there was 'a dangerously high proportion of staff who do not know the ward'

 [update - as stated above, the Maudsley workers believed they were the first ever nurses to stage an indefinite strike, and this was how the strike was reported at the time. However Michael Walker at the COHSE history blog records an earlier indefinite strike at Tooting Bec Hospital in 1975. That lasted for two days, so the Maudsley strikers were certainly setting some kind of record with their 12 day walkout- at the very least the first nurses strike to last continuously for more than a week]

A South East London transgender marriage in 1954

I have seen a few mentions on twitter and  facebook about the case of Vincent (born Violet) Jones and Joan Lee who were each fined £25 in 1954 following their 'illegal' wedding at St Luke’s Church in Downham - illegal because Vincent was not legally recognised as a man. An article at Historic England includes a photo of the couple on their wedding day (see below), with a quote from Jones: '‘We both love each other and when everything is put right we intend to get remarried. We shall have a public ceremony. We have nothing to be ashamed of.’

I wanted to see if I could find out more about this and thanks to the British Newspaper Archive and Ancestry, plus a couple of hints in messages from Bob from Brockley and Running Past, I think we can piece together more of the story.

Joan Mary Lee seems to have been born in Lewisham in 1933, her parents were George and Mary and in 1939 they were living at 120 Capstone Road in Downham with George working as a fitter for Post Office Engineering. Vincent Jones seems to have been born Violet Jones in Steyning, Sussex in 1928. The 1952 Electoral Register has Violet Ellen Jones living at 42 Ringmore Rise in Forest Hill. 

The couple met when they both worked as tracers in the drawing office at the South East London Telephone headquarters - not sure where this was, but it may have been the telephone exchange on corner of Glenton Road and Lee High Road SE13. According to the People (24/10/54) 'Girls who knew them say that "Miss Jones" had arrived at work one day in man's clothes and insisted that "she" had become a man, after operations'.

In September 1954 the vicar of St Luke's, Rev D G N Clark, 'pronounced Vincent Eric Kenneth Jones' of Forest Hill and '21 year old Joan Lee of Moorside Road, Downham, man and wife'  (Daily Herald, 25 October 1954) at a white wedding attended by relatives. 

After a two week honeymoon in Hastings they had set up home in rented rooms at 162 Ardgowan Road, Catford*.  It seems to have been the Vicar who reported them to the police having become aware that Vincent's  birth certificate bore the name Violet Ellen Katherine Jones. Following a police visit to their home in November, the couple were summonsed to appear in court for making a false statement to obtain a marriage certificate.

'The Girl Bridegroom' (Sunday Mirror, 24 October 1954)

The case was heard at Greenwich magistrates in December, and both were fined £25, the case receiving national media attention, some of it quite sympathetic. The magistrate said that Jones had 'made a grave false statement to cover your unnatural passion with a false air of respectability'. But this does not seem to have been a case of a same sex marriage by subterfuge - of the marriage of two self-identifying lesbians. Jones clearly identified as a man, telling the Daily Herald (25/10/54) for instance: ''I am a man. There is no doubt about that, and I have nothing to fear. My wife and I are very happy'.  In her statement, Joan said 'As time went of I became increasingly sure of my feeling for him as his for me, which neither of us made any attempt to hide from the world. To me he is as any other husband is' (Daily Herald, 14/12/54). 

Jones seems to have been recognised as a man at work and elsewhere and had experienced what would later be termed 'gender dysphoria' since childhood.  Jones' lawyer told the court that they had 'been a tomboy until teenage' and 'began to feel  desperate about her situation. It seemed ridiculous for her to be a female - she couldn't feel that she was a female. She tried to imitate them but found she couldn't do it'. Jones had sought medical treatment and spent four weeks at the Maudsley Hospital which had apparently 'advised Jones to wear male attire'(Liverpool Echo, 13 December 1954).

Jones told police 'I am a man but if you mean physically I still possess female organs... I have been to doctors to alter my sex completely but I was sick of waiting'. Jones had 'written to Denmark where there was a case of a woman doctor who changed her sex' (quoted in Alison Oram, 'Her Husband was a Woman!: Women's Gender-Crossing in Moden British Popular Culture', 2007). Gender Reassignment Surgery was in its early stages so it would have been very difficult for Jones to access it in 1954.

What happened next is unclear. Sadly Joan seems to have died in Dartford in 1966, bearing the name Joan Jones which suggests that the marriage continued. A press report from 1954 mentions that 'Joan is bald and wears a wig' which perhaps indicates an underlying serious health issue. There's a little confusion about Vincent - although so named in court, he is also referred to as Vic in press reports (e.g. by Joan's father below).  And it is as Victor E.K. Jones that he is named in a few places on family history website Ancestry, seemingly dying in Hastings in 1991 - decades after his honeymoon there with Joan.

 * press reports give address as Ardgowan Road, I have deduced house number from fact that their landlord Cyril Thomas is listed as living at 162 Ardgowan Road in 1962 electoral register.  Thomas 'in whose house the couple took rooms'  was quoted as saying 'They are a nice quiet couple. Sometimes they go out dancing' (DH, 25/10/54). 

'Girl weds girl in sex change sensation ' (People, 24/10/1954)-
found at British Newspaper Archive

(post last updated 18 November 2021)

Junior Doctors Strike in South London

There was good support across South London for today's strike by Junior Doctors against proposed new contract conditions.

Pickets at Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell photo from Unite the Resistance on twitter

Guys Hospital

St Thomas Hospital - photo by @laurafleur on twitter

Croydon University Hospital - photo from @ger_ogara on twitter

Lewisham Hospital - photo from @Allan_Katie on twitter

If you want to know more about the reasons for the strike and why doctors believe that they are not just fighting for their terms and conditions but for patient safety and for the NHS itself, check out the video from The Guardian filmed at Lewisham earlier today.