NEW ZEALAND NURSE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 898, 19 October 1956, Page 12

NEW ZEALAND NURSE

MY STORY, by Mary Lambie, C.B.E.; N. M. Peryer Ltd., 30/-.

(Reviewed by

Margaret

Garland

biography written by a woman who is not in the least interested in writing about herself, but who is passionately interested in the work to which her life has been devoted. Miss Lambie tells us that this story has been written at the insistence of ‘the nurses of this country, and that she hopes that by writing it she has returned to their profession something of that which it has given to her, and that she hopes she has contributed to the nursing history of New Zealand. Un- |: is unusual to find an auto-

doubtedly she has. She calls her book My Story, which, I suppose, is reasonable, because the story of nursing in New Zealand and in the wider field of international nursing has been Miss Lambie’s story, too. She has been a personality in the nursing world ever since she began training at Christchurch hospital in 1910. After six years as a nurse in one district in the South Island, at a moment when she had reached a stage she thinks many nurses do reach, of mental staleness, she was chosen for special training for the position of Public Health Nursing Instructor. She began the training in 1924, and from this dates the beginning of a career that hag taken Miss Lambie all over the world, bringing her honours and distinction. It has

also provided her with so many interests that she is able to say at the end of her book, "I realise that as age increases many of my present activities will slow down, but I have a rich library of memories to look back upon, amdng the most valued of which, are the hosts of true friends I have made in many parts of the world, and the value of these friendships." So much for the personal story, but Miss Lambie’s book is far more than that. It is about the nursing profession, about the history of nursing in New Zealand, and the gradual building up of a wide International Nursing Organisation. And it is written by an authority on the subject, who has herself played an important part in the story. My only complaint is that it is rather too perfunctory. We are given a bare outline and a few minute details, but the heart of the matter is perforce left out of a book of less than 200 pages. Nevertheless, it is a book that will be of special interest to nurses and of general interest because it presents a picture of their profession as an established international organisation, efficient, co-ordinated and dedicated to the service of humanityand run almost entirely by unmarried women. This seems to be the real subject of the book, and the fact that Miss Lambie has worked in this organisation with distinction, bringing honour to herself oa to her country, is incidental. Perhaps we do not sufficiently realise quite all that this profession-surely the most ' self-effacing in the world-embraces, and it is a pity that Miss Lambie’s small book gives the reader little more than a hint of it; but this hint is in itself quite staggering, and all the more effective for being presented so modestly.