The great divide

In November 1937, a group of masked nurses marched through London's streets, carrying placards proclaiming their demand for improved pay and conditions. The campaign they and like-minded nurses fought was to have far reaching consequences. Trade unionism was established elsewhere in nursing, but this was to be an important first step in breaking down the hegemony of the professional associations in general nursing as well as the service's dominant culture of subordination and loyalty to a mythic but compelling vocational ideal.