Stories of volunteers supporting the health service since 1949
Edna Ellis - Denbighshire, Wales
Denbigh is where Edna belongs. A farmers daughter, and then running her own farm, a life that had time to support the local community were hallmarks of her story.
It was clearly expected, and at the same time never resented, that she got involved in supporting the community, and particularly the Friends at the hospital.
We all did a lot of fundraising in those days. The one that stood out most was the thermometer on the outside showing how much money we wanted to raise. It was thousands.
Fundraising for items really was important. Edna also shares about a visit from Princess Anne that she was instrumental in making happen.
Finally, we hear how Edna is comfortable spending her last days in the community she calls home, the place where her friends can come and visit her.
Edna died three months after the interview.
Interviewer
So could I start by asking your name?
Edna Ellis
Edna Ellis.
Interviewer
And could I ask how old you are, Edna?
Edna Ellis
I am 90, 91 in July.
Interviewer
And looking fantastic, I have to say. Could I ask which League of Friends we are talking about today?
Edna Ellis
Denbigh Infirmary.
Interviewer
So could you tell us a bit of your story, how you got involved with the League of Friends?
Edna Ellis
Yes. Well, my mother was in the League of Friends, had been for a long time. And the Secretary was leaving, wanted to give up, not leaving, she was judged to give up the job, and nobody wanted to take it on So my mother rightly says, “oh, it’s alright. Edna will do it.” I wasn’t asked. I was told! And so I went to the next meeting, and I took over the job, and I did it for a heck of a long time. I can’t remember how many years.
Interviewer
So how old were you when you were persuaded that you were going onto the committee? Roughly?
Edna Ellis
I would have been in my thirties, I suppose.
Interviewer
Okay, so you sort of got an established life already.
Edna Ellis
Yes, I was a farmer’s wife.
Interviewer
A farmer’s wife. So how does a farmer’s wife fit in being Secretary of the League of Friends?
Edna Ellis
I don’t really know, but I did it for a long, long time.
Interviewer
And was it the sort of role where you did the admin, or did you get caught up in everything that the friends group were doing?
Edna Ellis
I did get caught up in it all. In it all really. With the admin, and everything.
Interviewer
And so were you sort of involved in fundraising?
Edna Ellis
Oh yes. Very much so. We all did a lot of fundraising in those days. The one, that stood out most was the thermometer on the outside, you know, as how much money we wanted to raise. It was thousands. Andrew wanted to raise this money for, I think we were either, I can’t remember what it was for now, but it was, it was either an extension or putting something else up, but it was a lot of money. And so we had to have all sorts of things to make this money. And then we had the staff decided they were coming in on this as well. So the staff decided to do a pantomime. So it was the staff, the doctors, everybody was involved in this thing, and they ran it for a week. It was on every night for a week. And the stage was trolleys, surgical trolleys fastened together, the curtains were everybody’s lounge curtains put up the width and breadth of the room and all these other things. It really went very well. You know, the doctors, everybody worked well in it, that itself raised a lot of money. But that was the thing, back then in those days. Was that in between the staff and the…
Interviewer
Volunteers?
Edna Ellis
…and the League, they worked together, but we did a lot of money raising for them.
Interviewer
I think it’s interesting because I think today when people look at friends groups, they often think about buying equipment, but they don’t necessarily know that over the decades the friends also paid for quite a lot of bricks and mortar as well.
Edna Ellis
Yes, they did. They did. Yes.
Interviewer
So for those of us that are listening who perhaps don’t know where Denbigh is, or what the hospital is like, how big is the hospital roughly?
Edna Ellis
It’s just a small community hospital
Interviewer
A couple of wards or?..
Edna Ellis
Yes, it did have quite a few wards upstairs, and downstairs. But just as I was giving up the League of Friends, presumably the NHS decided that we couldn’t have the wards upstairs because we had the kitchen underneath them. So it was a fire risk. There’d been a fire risk since heaven knows when, but they suddenly decided that it had to go. So there were no wards upstairs at all. So we lost 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 wards upstairs. And that one we used that. But it’s only two wards there now.
Interviewer
Okay.
Edna Ellis
I was in one of them last year. But lot of the stuff that we did, the alterations, and the things that we did are all still involved.
Interviewer
So another thing that I’ve noticed is that friends groups are still quite vibrant in the small local communities. You know, the big hospitals sometimes it’s harder, But in the local community, your Mum was involved, it was, you were a local farmer’s wife, have the friends group here always sort of been a lot of local people?
Edna Ellis
All been local. Yes. Always local.
Interviewer
And they were keen to keep the hospital.
Edna Ellis
Oh, very much so, yes.
Interviewer
Yes. That, that’s another. We can sometimes get a bit militant as friends. Can’t we? Yes. But we don’t want to lose our beds. We don’t want to lose our hospital.
Edna Ellis
No, no. And then the hospital had, while I was at the League, the hospital, it’s the oldest in Wales, I think it was… And it had its 200th birthday, so we decided we’d have to have a big celebration for this. So “did we think we could get the Queen?” I said, “Well, I’ll try. Do what I can do. I can’t do any more than that.” So I got hold of the appropriate people, and I was told “that it was very difficult to get the Queen and the dates didn’t tally, but would we be happy with Princess Anne?” So I said, “Well, I’ll consult the hospital and I can see you can’t see any reason why not, but, well, I’ll consult them first.” So I went back, and I said “I couldn’t get the Queen, but I can get Princess Anne if… is that any good?”
Edna Ellis
Well, they were delighted when I said we could have somebody from the Royal Family. So Princess Anne came, and so we arranged it all. We invited the local kids schools, to send kids as representatives, and we had them all out there. To welcome the Princess when she came, but she arrived by helicopter at the back of the schools, and came by car from there, whizzed through the gate, straight up to the door. And all these kids were standing, you know, from the gateway in a line. “That was her, that was the Princess”, so not amused. She came in, and we all met her, and all the rest of it. And then we started on the tour of the hospital and then Dennis came to me and said that the kids were all disappointed because the Princess wasn’t really seen, as they thought.
Edna Ellis
And they’d got pictures, and all sorts. So I spoke to a Lady in Waiting and she said, “leave it with me.” She said, she came back to me, and she said “that she’d spoken to Princess Anne” and she had said “that if we could get hold of the schools, and ask them to bring the children back, bring them to the back of the hospital”, because the Princess was going to go out through the back, and her car would pick her up there, she would speak to all of the children”, which she did. So that saved the day. But unfortunately when she got back to a helicopter, the helicopter wouldn’t start. But I couldn’t laugh…
Interviewer
How fantastic though! And, and that determination, and that care really comes through in that story, that determination for the community that they want to be recognised. Yes. And, and actually that when they get somebody to come and recognise them, they all want to be part of it as well. It’s really important.
Edna Ellis
When I went into the hospital myself, the lady that came round with the food, she stopped when she got in the ward, and she spoke to everybody and she said, “well ladies and gentlemen, this lady was a member of The League of Friends at this hospital, and worked very, very, very hard for it, to get an awful lot of things that you’ve got.” At least I was recognised for something.
Interviewer
That’s good! So, so while we are thinking about, as someone who needed the service, did it matter to you? Do you think you got better more quickly? You felt happier, because you were actually in your own local community and hospital?
Edna Ellis
Oh, I think so. Yes. It made a big difference. Yes. Yes, I did. My first where I came from Llandudno to Denbigh, I thought, “God, I’m in an old folk’s home.” They’re already all staring into space. But once I got over that, yes, the service I got up there was wonderful. Yes. So they were very good.
Interviewer
And you’re literally, you’ve just almost hopped across the street now, into here?
Edna Ellis
Into here, yes.
Interviewer
And…
Edna Ellis
Come around the corner from there to here, the hospitals over there.
Interviewer
And what does that mean to you to be actually, still in your community?
Edna Ellis
Still in the community? Very much. Yes.
Interviewer
Because, one assumes some of your friends are not in the first flush of youth?
Edna Ellis
Not many of them! No not many of them…
Interviewer
But there’s the possibility that either you can still go and visit them, or they can come…
Edna Ellis
And visit me? Yes. I’m the oldest of them all. So they visit me.
Interviewer
That’s nice.
Edna Ellis
It is very nice. Yes. And that’s why I chose here because, I was in my own town. I did visit a newer place in Ruthin, which is only seven miles down the road. But I thought, my friends are coming to Denbigh to do their shopping, so they’ll pop in. You know, on their way back from shopping. Whereas it’s an effort to go to Ruthin, it’s a different matter.
Interviewer
Absolutely.
Interviewer
So, now when you knew I was coming today, is there anything that you thought you might like to tell me that you haven’t had the opportunity to say yet?
Edna Ellis
No. Well, I really have no idea what you were coming for, and my main thing was, I hope, I can remember anything.
Edna Ellis
When we start, you start talking, you think about things.
Interviewer
I think it’s been lovely, and I think you’ve given us a slightly different perspective than we’ve heard from anybody else. And that’s lovely. And that’s really what this story’s all about. It’s about different people’s stories. Yes. And we’ll come back, and we’ll interview another couple of volunteers. from Denbigh, and we’ll see, because their story will add to yours, and make it richer. So thank you ever so much.
| Contributor: | Edna Ellis |
| Recorded on: | 25 March 2025 |
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| Setting: | Hospital |
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The League of Friends of the Denbighshire Infirmary was founded in 1971. Volunteers assist the hospital in numerous ways, including providing a tea bar in outpatient and trolley shop for the day unit and wards as a form of patient service.