Dr Huppert trapped in lift

Dr Huppert

An uneasy relationship exists between Sister Winnie Morgan and Dr Huppert.

They share little in come except both work at Craig-y-nos and both are women though woman is not a word often used to describe Dr Huppert.

Indeed one child insists she’s a man.

No matter. It is enough to say that her gender leads to some confusion in the minds of small children.

I, for one, could not understand how a person could be a man with the top half of the body (cropped hair worn swept back and a deep guttural voice) yet the bottom half female ( thick stockings , women's legs, and women’s shoes).

Nevertheless I digress .


One day Dr Huppert gets stuck in the lift, a huge ancient contraption more like a cage than a mechanical device for moving people, dead and alive between floors.

The gates refuse to open.

She rattles them and the noise brings Sister Morgan from her office who, seeing her plight, bursts out laughing.

“Get me out of here!” shouts Dr Huppert.
Sister Morgan laughs louder.
All this noise brings us racing out of Ward 2 down the corridor to see what all the fuss is about.



“A shilling to view girls!” says Sister Morgan and titters at her own joke.

Dr Huppert begins shouting in a foreign language.

We are transfixed. We have never heard another tongue spoken before.


“I knew you reminded me of something ,” says Sister Morgan.
“I can see it now. You must be very closely related to a monkey, much closer than the rest of us.”

It’s true.
But unlike a caged animal, Dr Huppert is not going to remain in the lift for ever.

Clearly Sister Morgan is not thinking through the political implications of her blatant enjoyment of Dr Huppert’s discomfiture. She is too busy enjoying the moment.


This infuriates Dr Huppert even more and she becomes extremely vociferous , shouting even louder in this strange foreign tongue.

Whatever she is saying about Sister Morgan we fear it is not complimentary.

Time passes.
Sister Morgan continues to enjoy the sight of Dr Huppert's temporary imprisonment.



Nurse Glenys Davies appears. She suggests Sister Morgan should go and ring for the hospital engineer.
She does, somewhat relunctantly and emerges a few minutes later from her office , almost triumphant, with the news:

“He’s in Cardiff for the day.”
“You know the rules..” she adds.

We note a sense of satisfaction in her voice. She is smirking.
Nobody, but nobody except the hospital engineer is allowed to touch the lift.

So what to do? Sister Morgan is all for leaving Dr Huppert there for the rest of the day.

But Nurse Davies intervenes. She offers to try and free Dr Huppert.

First we are shooed back to our ward because the staff decide it is not appropriate for us to be relishing Dr Huppert’s temporary embarrassing circumstances.
Nevertheless we continue to peep through the glass door of Ward 2 as Dr Huppert paces up and down inside the lift, indeed like a caged gorilla.
It takes an uncommonly long time, despite Nurse Glenys Davies best endeavours, before she is freed.

Sister Morgan, we note, does not help. Rather she stands there offering advise.

For the rest of the day though Sister Morgan is in very high spirits. And to celebrate she puts Thomas, the hospital cat, in our food cupboard.
But that is another story.