Interviewer

So, could I ask you, first of all, for your name?

Fiona Aird

Fiona Aird.

Interviewer

And the Friends group, we’re going to be talking about today?

Fiona Aird

The Middlesex Hospital, which became the Middlesex and University College Hospitals.

Interviewer

Thank you. And your age?

Fiona Aird

86.

Interviewer

Thank you. And could I ask what first inspired you to become involved with Friends groups?

Fiona Aird

I had two aunts who were involved with the Middlesex Hospital because their father-in-law, my step-grandfather was Chairman of the hospital and of the medical school.

Interviewer

And did you, were you involved there from quite a young age? Was that when you first came to London, or after?

Fiona Aird

I think I was in my early twenties. I lived in London. It was after I was married and I lived in London. I did the flowers in the hospital.

Interviewer

When we were still allowed to have flowers.

Fiona Aird

We had a flower shop.

Interviewer

So I can remember going to the Middlesex quite a long time ago now. I had an aunt who was in there. And I remember it as being quite a sort of a forbidding building, almost.

Fiona Aird

It had a lovely courtyard in front of it, then the hall and then when you went in and the flower stalls were on the left by the window, which we sold flowers from, and we provided flowers throughout the hospital. I mean, we did the flowers in the middle of the hall table. We did flowers in the boardroom, which was the room at the back. The matron’s office had some flowers.

Interviewer

Impressive. And so you, they clearly ran a flower shop. What else did the friends group do?

Fiona Aird

They had the shop and also they went round the wards asking if anybody wanted anything, if they needed anything.

Interviewer

So like a trolley service?

Fiona Aird

Yes. I think, I think we did have a trolley actually. Yes. And we took books around and the wards were able to apply to the Friends if they needed things like amazingly enough, when they first got up, they didn’t have any wheelchairs. I mean, we provided various things.

Interviewer

And that was at a time when well, and I’m not convinced it’s changed actually that a lot was still needed in various hospitals.

Fiona Aird

Yes. I think it was.

Interviewer

And did you have lots of volunteers?

Fiona Aird

We had quite a large number because there was because my aunts who were the grand…. my mother’s stepfather was Chairman of the hospital. And then when it became NHS, he was Chairman of the medical school and he was very much still involved in the hospitals.

Fiona Aird

My aunts who were in-laws, if you like, they were married to our side were very much involved. And it’s your turn now is what was said to me by my aunts.

Interviewer

Almost like a family business, that you will get involved with and where you all do stuff.

Fiona Aird

Yes. I mean, it was definitely going to be in the Middlesex nowhere else?

Interviewer

And how many years roughly did you volunteer there for?

Fiona Aird

I suppose I was about 19 or 20 when I started and I stopped just after I came down here in 2000.

Interviewer

So the best part of 50 years, probably.

Fiona Aird

Possibly, yes.

Interviewer

So, it was a long period. And you stopped primarily not only because of the move, but the hospital itself had been merged?

Fiona Aird

Well the Middlesex had been merged with UCH and then closed. And I moved on.

Interviewer

Absolutely. I mean, one of the questions I always find interesting is how well voluntary groups merge with other voluntary groups. How did that process go? Do you have any memories of that?

Fiona Aird

No I don’t really, I think that we all did our own thing. I moved on slightly and became very much involved in medical appointments committees. So I know most of the doctors, in most of the country.

Interviewer

And in your view, do you think we still need Friends groups today?

Fiona Aird

I think it’s a very difficult one to answer because I think that a lot of hospitals have got their own hospital volunteers, voluntary services organiser, which indeed the Middlesex had and at the Middlesex we were in it and eventually only able to have a shop.

Interviewer

So fundamentally the hospital supported the recruitment process for you and all of those issues. And you were allowed to do certain tasks.

Fiona Aird

I think that the voluntary services organiser was the person you had to get on with.

Interviewer

So today the NHS seems to be under a lot of pressure. We have lots of volunteers floating around, or we have this reputed, lots of volunteers being involved in hospitals. Do you think there’s still a contribution for older volunteers in hospitals through any of the routes?

Fiona Aird

It all depends what you mean by older, what age are you talking? What do you consider older? Because, I mean, for instance, I go to Yeovil hospital and they have volunteers there. There’s usually somebody or there used to always be somebody standing in the hall who was guiding people where to go, if they wanted to go somewhere. There was also somebody who came around and asked if you wanted a newspaper and that sort of thing in the wards. So I think there is a place for volunteers. And I think that those volunteers were actually, I think were ours rather than theirs.

Interviewer

And when you were thinking that I was coming by today, did you have anything else that you thought you might want to tell me about that I haven’t mentioned so far?

Fiona Aird

Why didn’t you ask me that before? No, I just wonder what the organisation is going to do in the future. Where are you going? Because the hospitals themselves, the NHS itself is trying to be so controlling.

Interviewer

I think it’s very interesting from the history point of view because the League of Friends in 1948, thought the NHS was being very controlling when they set themselves up. And there was a sort of a sense then from my perspective that they felt undermined in their contribution to the community. And if we look at our histories, lots of Friends groups shut down, sort of around the formation of the NHS. And by the mid 1950s, they’ve all opened up again. Aneurin Bevan said where the shoe pinches, your contribution would always be needed. And I find it fascinating that here we are in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic, and they’re shouting that they want volunteers to come into the NHS to support the delivery of services. For me I think our strength, real strength as an organisation that, you know, all the Friends groups together is the way that they’re embedded in their local communities…. we reckon on our last report that about there’s about 180,000 people linked to local Leagues of Friends across the country.

Fiona Aird

When you say the country, you mean just England? Or England, Scotland and Wales

Interviewer

England, Scotland, and Wales. So we’ve got this sort of sense that it’s about a community activity. And I think there’s always going to be, the NHS is very risk averse. They’re always going to want to control what happens on their premises in some way or the other. And I think we can adapt to suit that, but I do think that there is still a huge role for trying to encourage communities to come together to either support their hospital or the new iteration of care.

Interviewer

So, one of our new projects is working in care homes. We’ve got 20 friends groups now linked to individual care homes. And sometimes I think that’s easier for people to get their head around than a great big NHS institution, which they can’t sort of work out where the edges are and what happens. But actually they can see a real need in their local community in a care home, which is on the corner of the road that their family and friends may have to go into. And so I think that idea that we’re about volunteering, we’re about health and social care, and we’re about local communities is the strong thread moving forward.

Fiona Aird

And what about the fundraising? Because actually I thought, I would guess that a lot of the hospitals and the small homes are desperate.

Interviewer

We find that we work with quite a lot of different providers and, you know, some providers are sort of in the more elegant end of the spectrum where homes are concerned. And some really are just former council homes that have been handed over to the private sector and are being run and do, you know, are still a bit linoleum floored and that sort of thing.

Interviewer

And we find that actually in both sets, there is always something that they are looking for funding for. So, I’m thinking of one care home, particularly at the moment where we are doing, the Friends group are doing Christmas stockings to go on the beds of every single resident for Christmas morning. And that’s a really nice thing. Because local schools and churches are getting involved. We have a list of different things that you can perhaps put in your stocking.

Interviewer

And then the care home will run through it and just check that it’s okay before it ends up on the end of a bed. But for many residents, they don’t have relatives at the moment who can come in and see them, or they don’t have any relatives at all. I think for hospitals, there is always little added extras that we can fund. I do hope that we have gone past the days of having to run scanner appeals and those sorts of things. But one of the things that a lot of groups now fund are little toiletry packs for when people come in and that sort of thing, and we’ll be buying significant numbers of those. So I do think that there’s still a contribution, that needs for things that need to be bought. And the general public is still very generous where helping towards those things are concerned.

Fiona Aird

Yes. I think I agree with you. I would agree with you.