A celebrity British nurse better known than Victoria Beckam flies in tomorrow to begin new age bedpan duty at Royal Darwin Hospital. She is Florence Nightingale who has been attempting to get a job at RDH for more than 150 years. During the bitterly cold Crimean War, Ms Nightingale heard about the fabulous Northern Territory lifestyle. “Bugger this ,”she muttered, shivering, despite a quick swig of rum from a hip flask, while the vinegary faced matron was busily waxing Lord Kitchener’s moustache . “ I’m off to sunny Darwin .”
On the back of a suffragette war manifesto, she scribbled an application for a nursing job in Darwin , addressed it to the Health Department , placed it in one of the empty gin bottles from under her bed and chucked it into the Black Sea.
Miraculously, the bottle quickly washed up at Glenelg , Adelaide , and was transported by Afghan camel, donkey , an Aboriginal runner with a cleft message stick and pony express to the Darwin Health Department IN tray . In those rough and ready pioneering days the department was located in a bush timber building shared with a sly grog shop. White ants promptly ate her application.
After nearly a half century wait , patient Florence enlisted Queen Victoria’s help to get a reply. The Queen , not amused by the absurd delay , threw another plonk bottle in the briny with a royal command to appoint Ms Nightingale. Unfortunately , prevailing currents carried the bottle north to Greenland where it was buried deep beneath the ice cap.
While waiting for the reply, Ms Nightingale knocked back at least 1000 marriage proposals , a job in Buckingham Palace shovelling dung in the Queen’s racehorse stables and a lucrative career as a chorus girl. It is also rumoured she had a dalliance with a prominent WW11 politician who, like Bill Clinton, loved cigars and made rude public gestures with his digits.
Thanks to global warming, the Greenland ice cover melted , the bottle floated free and reached Darwin after being plucked from the sea by an Iraqi refugee picked up by the Tampa. Eventually Ms Nightingale received a letter from the Health Department confirming her appointment, even though it was nibbled by termites. Filled with joy, she cartwheeled through the Chelsea Pensioners’ barracks in her best Mother Hubbard and several inmates died from shock when they spotted a naked ankle. Then she threw her daring neck to ankle bikini into a kitbag and booked a cattle class ticket for the fabulous Territory.
Before setting out on her flight to Darwin, Ms Nightingale graciously agreed to an interview by Little Darwin’s London based medical roundsman , Dr Jonathan Ripper. Dr Ripper says Nightingale, looking like a dried out mummy from King Tut’s tomb, needs a good rub down with copious quantities of whale oil and extensive cosmetic surgery . In other words, she looks like your typical overworked Darwin nurse. Our reporter strongly advised Ms Nightingale to put a new wick in her lamp to cope with Darwin’s blackouts .
Ms Nightingale is looking forward to the lavish residential accommodation for medical staff at the Royal Darwin Hospital which is affectionately known as the Black Hole of Sebastopol .
On the back of a suffragette war manifesto, she scribbled an application for a nursing job in Darwin , addressed it to the Health Department , placed it in one of the empty gin bottles from under her bed and chucked it into the Black Sea.
Miraculously, the bottle quickly washed up at Glenelg , Adelaide , and was transported by Afghan camel, donkey , an Aboriginal runner with a cleft message stick and pony express to the Darwin Health Department IN tray . In those rough and ready pioneering days the department was located in a bush timber building shared with a sly grog shop. White ants promptly ate her application.
After nearly a half century wait , patient Florence enlisted Queen Victoria’s help to get a reply. The Queen , not amused by the absurd delay , threw another plonk bottle in the briny with a royal command to appoint Ms Nightingale. Unfortunately , prevailing currents carried the bottle north to Greenland where it was buried deep beneath the ice cap.
While waiting for the reply, Ms Nightingale knocked back at least 1000 marriage proposals , a job in Buckingham Palace shovelling dung in the Queen’s racehorse stables and a lucrative career as a chorus girl. It is also rumoured she had a dalliance with a prominent WW11 politician who, like Bill Clinton, loved cigars and made rude public gestures with his digits.
Thanks to global warming, the Greenland ice cover melted , the bottle floated free and reached Darwin after being plucked from the sea by an Iraqi refugee picked up by the Tampa. Eventually Ms Nightingale received a letter from the Health Department confirming her appointment, even though it was nibbled by termites. Filled with joy, she cartwheeled through the Chelsea Pensioners’ barracks in her best Mother Hubbard and several inmates died from shock when they spotted a naked ankle. Then she threw her daring neck to ankle bikini into a kitbag and booked a cattle class ticket for the fabulous Territory.
Before setting out on her flight to Darwin, Ms Nightingale graciously agreed to an interview by Little Darwin’s London based medical roundsman , Dr Jonathan Ripper. Dr Ripper says Nightingale, looking like a dried out mummy from King Tut’s tomb, needs a good rub down with copious quantities of whale oil and extensive cosmetic surgery . In other words, she looks like your typical overworked Darwin nurse. Our reporter strongly advised Ms Nightingale to put a new wick in her lamp to cope with Darwin’s blackouts .
Ms Nightingale is looking forward to the lavish residential accommodation for medical staff at the Royal Darwin Hospital which is affectionately known as the Black Hole of Sebastopol .
