p64w36 7/5/10 14:57 Page 64

GREETINGS FROM SCUTARI Former museum director those four miles of beds placed just 18 inches apart. Alex Attewell sends a topical postcard Miss Nightingale’s latest biographer Mark Bostridge said it is only on seeing the size of

Scutari that the challenge faced ALAMY by Miss Nightingale and her colleagues can be appreciated. The museum contains reproduction prints of the corridors and wards in various states of repair. Some, it has to be said, are romanticised; nothing comes close to portraying the ‘calamity unparalleled’ encountered by the nurses in that first winter of 1854, when mortality peaked at 40 per cent. However, the pictures help visitors to orientate themselves as they can glimpse the actual building out of the corner of their eye. not in the original tower occupied My tour included sites of I took a group to the Selimiye by Miss Nightingale and her , including the recently Barracks at Uskudar, a suburb nurses, which was located on a uncovered cisterns beneath the of Istanbul on the Asian side of different side of the main gate. city’s streets. These would have the Bosphorus straits, as part of a recent tour. VISITORS CAN STOP AND IMAGINE THOSE British soldiers injured fighting the Russians in the FOUR MILES OF BEDS, 18 INCHES APART were brought through the straits, via the Black Sea, to the barrack The museum does not contain fascinated Miss Nightingale, who hospital at Scutari, the British any original artefacts from Miss was so interested in clean water name for Selimiye. The Nightingale’s day, but that is no and drains NS British used it for 18 months surprise. The real artefact is the during the conflict, which lasted building itself. Alex Attewell is a former from 1853 to 1856. People on the tour always say director of the Florence that the experience of visiting Nightingale Museum in London Historic journey the building is spinechilling and and is now a freelance writer Hardly any local residents emotional. With all my years’ and heritage consultant know of Florence Nightingale’s association with the nursing connection with the Turkish first profession and with Miss RESOURCES army’s headquarters, which Nightingale through my work Scutari tours remains much as it was when the as director of the Florence www.jonbainestours.co.uk/ Ottomans ruled the country. Nightingale Museum in London, itinerary.php?tour_id=43 After taking the military bus I can appreciate the solemnity Scutari site www.florence- from the main gate of the and the elation of standing where Pictured above: nightingale-avenging- barracks, tourists go on a journey Selimiye Barracks, it all started. angel.co.uk/scutari.htm back in time. The present-day where Florence Stepping on to pristine marble Florence Nightingale Scutari museum to Florence Nightingale tiles where once there were treated British Museum www.florence- Nightingale is located in a corner rotting floorboards, visitors can soldiers injured in nightingale.co.uk/cms tower in the military building. It is the Crimean War stop for a moment and imagine

64 may 12 :: vol 24 no 36 :: 2010 NURSING STANDARD