Review by Dr Rosemary Wall, Research Associate, FNSNM

The day was a multi-disciplinary and collaborative effort involving King’s College London academics from English (Max Saunders), Music (Christopher Wintle), the Institute of Psychiatry (Simon Wessely) and FNSNM, in addition to a music professor from Nottingham University (Mervyn Cooke), and participants from the English National Opera (Philip Reed, Lee Bisset and Nicholas Ansdell-Evans). Not only were the audience treated to varied academic papers but also to the powerful, dramatic performance of the soprano, Lee Bisset, in the role of the Governess, accompanied by the repetiteur, Nicholas Ansdell-Evans. Rosemary and Anne Marie presented connected papers on ‘Governesses and Children in Late Victorian Society’ and ‘Women and Hysteria’. The protagonist in Turn of the Screw is a late nineteenth century governess, and the story, based on Henry James’ novella, is full of ambiguity – are the ghosts real, or imagined by the governess and/or children? In addition to contextualising the opera in history, they drew connections between the occupations of governessing and nursing, and examined issues such as children’s grief and the problems with mental health suffered by women and governesses in particular in the nineteenth century.

At least three members of FNSNM were spotted in the 200 strong audience – Ian Noonan, Carys Jones and Charlotte Humphrey – and we hope they enjoyed the cultural event as a whole, in addition to the connections between Turn of the Screw and nursing and healthcare in general. Many thanks go to Ian Noonan who has made links with the ENO which have led to previous workshops for the School of Nursing and Midwifery and their collaboration in his future Nursing and the Arts module, and led to the School’s involvement in the Study Day. Ian also came up with the idea of staging the day as an Inquiry. Simon Wessely drew many laughs from the audience in his role as the Chair of the Inquiry and the device was very successful in drawing the papers together and entertaining the audience. Thanks also to Katherine Bond from KCL Business for her role in organising the day. Please look out for more information about the day and links on the FNSNM website in the near future.