when we came in they made us cut slits up the back of our night-dresses so that they could wash our backs in a neat orderly row in the mornings - usually between five and six am before the ward lights were switched on. No-one escaped the morning ritual, from the stoic business man to the mother or child. If the wash was over the breakfast could begin on time. you lay there in the semi-light swearing that if you could just get up and get out you would creep into their own houses before the birds were singing and ritually degrade them as part of their new found morning routines too.