BEDPANS AND BOBBY SOCKS by Barbara Fox
‘In my dreams, I was always in some vast landscape on a long, straight road. Driving. Always driving.’
Gwenda had always loved the open road, but her home town of Newcastle didn’t really offer the sort of adventure she longed for. So, in 1957, with best friend and fellow nurse Pat in tow, she left the dismal British winter behind and embarked on an amazing American adventure. After a year nursing in Cleveland, Ohio, Gwenda, Pat and three new friends – Celia from County Tipperary, Maureen from London and Molly from Glasgow – set off on a road trip around North America in their rickety 1949 Ford. During their eighteen months on the road they take on dozens of different jobs to survive, sleep out in national parks, and have encounters with gunmen and movie stars. Indeed, so unusual is their arrival in small-town America, they make newspaper headlines all across the land. This is a nostalgic memoir of friendship and the romance of the open road.
