Interviewer

Could we just start first of all, by indicating your name

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

I’m Gillian Vaughan Hudson.

 

Interviewer

And which friends groups are we talking about today?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

The League of Friends with the Middlesex, and the friends of UCLH.

 

Interviewer

Excellent. And could I just ask your age?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

I am 84.

 

Interviewer

Thank you. So, first of all, I mean, we are talking about two League of Friends, and we’ll come onto that a bit later, as to why there are two that are part of your story, but can you tell us a bit about your life in medicine, and how you got involved?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Well, I qualified in 1961 at the Middlesex and I, then did Richard Turner Warwick’s house job, and then I left, and had three children. And then I came back in 1972 and decided that…

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

And decided that dermatology would be compatible with three young children. And so I did a dermatology job and, and then I was offered a job in nuclear medicine. That’s the wrong way around actually. Yes. so I went into nuclear medicine just…which wet my appetite for getting back into medicine. Then I decided to do skins and then Tony Jelliffe, who was director of the Myerstein at Middlesex rang me up one evening and said, “Gillian, would you like to do my research job in the autumn?” I said, “research into what?” And he said, “Hodgkin’s Disease.” And I said, “well, I’ve only ever seen one case of Hodgkin’s disease, a very ill yellow, young boy of 18 who died rather rapidly.” “Oh my dear,” He said, “it’s all changed, all changed, come and have a chat.”

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

So I took his research job and then became the Director of the Lymphoma group, and then retired in 97. And by that time, the survival rate of Hodgkin’s had risen from 5% to 90%. So it was a very exciting time to work in a cancer field. Absolutely. And then we obviously joined, I became, very involved with the Europeans groups, because we all needed to pool our data. And then I was advised at the end of my career, would I be an Advisor to the Russians? Because they couldn’t fulfill the criteria to join European trials. So I used to go and visit St. Petersburg, the military academy. So it was really interesting career.

 

Interviewer

And very varied?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

And very varied!

Interviewer

And throughout that career, were you aware of the League of Friends?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Not really. Except they sold the flowers in the front hall, and they ran the shop, but otherwise not.

 

Interviewer

No. And, and that’s interesting because we hear that quite regularly when we are interviewing people who’ve worked in the NHS, they’re not really totally aware yes. Of what the voluntary groups will do. So how did you get involved?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

How did I get involved? This was Lady Aird, who knew I was about to retire and persuaded me to become a trustee of the Friends. And then she retired when Margaret Spittle took over, I was the Vice Chairman. And so then, it was decided when the hospitals were going to merge that it shouldn’t be any of the Chairman of all the groups, chairing a new shadow committee. It should be somebody else. And Sir Peter Dixon asked me.

 

Interviewer

So it sort of found you rather than, you finding it?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Yes. I certainly didn’t find it, and I certainly didn’t know it was going to involve so much work over the years.

 

Interviewer

Excellent. So that is 20 years ago now?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Yes. I can’t believe it. So I retired in 1997. Okay. And so then could put a lot of time into yes. Went into the League of Friends of, Middlesex and, and then the merger, which was very time consuming.

Interviewer

So my assumption is that the Middlesex…life at the Middlesex was very different from life at UCLH for example. So do you have any memories or stories of anything that was going on with the Friends or at UCLH…sorry, Middlesex, before you went over?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Oh, yes. I mean, the big thing, as I joined, the major grant that the friends made from the Middlesex League of Friends, was £200,000 to the new adolescent unit, the first adolescent unit in the country, which Lady Aird spearheaded. And so that had, that was just about to be opening, I think, when I started. So that was a major fundraising event that for the League of Friends of the Middlesex. And I think it’s the one in there that Fiona said she’s most proud of.

 

Interviewer

And was that fundraising literally from flower shops and shops or did it come from all sorts of different?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Oh all, sorts of places. Yes.

 

Interviewer

Excellent.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

No, not just from flower shops. It needed big money.

 

Interviewer

But that showed some real vision from the Friends group of the time.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Yes, so the two big things was the adolescent unit and the hospital, and also Fiona helped to start these wonderful magic shows on all the wards called POD, and that we continued and they still do today at UCLH.

 

Interviewer

So tell me about the hospital radio?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Well, I don’t know, very much about it, except it was very amateur at the beginning, and when we transferred to UCLH it was the first grant we made of £8,000. So they could continue at UCLH and we had to buy a bit more equipment, and the UCLH friends have funded it. I don’t know where it gets its funding now, but we have supported it all, all the way through if it needed it. And it was set up by Marion Frank, and it’s now run by somebody called Katie Ginger, or was.

Interviewer

So there you are. You’ve suddenly found yourself in charge of an organisation, which is really transitioning from one story to another, the new story and be it the Friends, or other things. Have you found that you’ve been sort of caught up in trying to keep relationships together with people perhaps who left, or retired, and those sorts of things?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Yes. One had to. It was a very difficult time, the merger. One had to be quite a diplomat. And the other problem with the other hospitals was they all, they raised money for different things. Middlesex, for instance, didn’t give televisions, the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson gave televisions.

 

Interviewer

They’re more cautious in their funding?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Very cautious, in their funding. Yes. So, before we go onto the merger, should I just go back to the start of the League of Friends, how it started?

 

Interviewer

Yes, that would be great.

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

So well, it started in 1912 and it was called the Ladies’ Work Society and they made night dresses for patients in 1921. It was then re-called the Ladies Association, doing much the same things. And in 1968, it changed completely. It became the League of Friends of Middlesex and it was Mrs Hugh Astor, who set it up. And it was a totally much… a very professional thing.

 

Interviewer

And, and the Astors have a long history with the Middlesex?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

The Astors have a long history with Middlesex. Lady Aird’s Step-grandfather, he was Lord Astor of Hever, and he was the Chairman of the Governors. And she as a child used to come around. They used to do a ward round all the wards with the Chief Executive and the Matron and, which she remembers, I remember that as a child. And so the Astors, you probably quite, might be quite interested in this. So there was Lord Astor of Hever, a step-granddaughter, Fiona Aird, then the children, Gavin Astor, Editor of the Observer, Irene Astor that she worked on the Friends, Emmy Lou, which is the wife of Hugh Astor, who was the actual dynamo in setting up the League of Friends of the Middlesex and her son, Robert, who is the one now who is Chairman of the Essex Wynter Trust, which is for… do you know the Essex Wynter Trust? It was set up, this Doctor Essex Wynter left lovely land, and a house in Newbury. And it was to… for retired Middlesex nurses. So nurses, then they probably had lost their fiancés in the war, or hadn’t married, had no pension. And this absolutely magical place, Newbury, wonderful garden, wonderful house, and some old cottages. So Robert Astor now runs it, and I was on it for a while. And they’re trying now to make it possibly housing for nurses in London, because there aren’t any Middlesex nurses, sisters who are in need, you know, I mean they don’t exist. They’ve all got different lives.

 

Interviewer

We’re at different point in history.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Yes. And there’s only one…was one, I think there’s one remaining Middlesex nurse there. So the Trust decided a quite a long time ago to sell the big house. Nurses home, sell it to BUPA, so a nurses home and with that money, build some bungalows on the land. And so it was a wonderful home to lots and lots of wonderful nursing sisters. So that’s Robert Astor and he’s still involved. And so the Astors, for instance, they built the nurses home, Astor College, which still hasn’t been pulled down. Then John Astor House, which is the new well, it’s the nurses home and these, the medical student rooms, which is now Astor College. So they gave that, they gave the friends, I don’t know what it is now, three or five thousand pounds a year, ever since we started, I never needed any more money for anything. They always give something, so enormous Middlesex benefactors.

 

Interviewer

Excellent. And that’s lovely to hear, and it’s lovely to put that into context of how that fits in with the whole story. and it’s interesting for me, just as a perception that you’ve been around all the Middlesex friends group in inverted commas has been around since the beginning of the 1900’s , almost. But actually doesn’t adopt the name of the League of Friends until the late 1960s.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

1968. Yes.

 

Interviewer

Yes. That, that’s really interesting. And that, it’s also part of the individuality. I think that we see, so at Barts, I think they’re called the Guild of St Bartholomew. You know, they all have slightly different names. I was looking at a lovely group the other day. That’s called, The Good Companions.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Oh right, that’s good.

 

Interviewer

And I thought that was a nice name actually for, for, for people, but okay. So we get to 1968. So is there anything else, particularly notable in the history that you want to mention about the Middlesex?

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

We were all very shocked when we knew it was going to be pulled down. I mean, absolute tragedy because it was a beautiful building. I mean, some of it wasn’t so good, but the Boardroom that could have made a wonderful museum or the chapel of course, remains. On stilts, it was on stilts and it’s the Fitzrovia chapel, which is now a listed building in the middle of a block of flats that was built for oligarchs on the Middlesex site, which is actually not filled by oligarchs. It’s filled by their children, which will make a lot of noise. So the whole thing is…

 

Interviewer

So can people still go into the Fitzrovia chapel?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Oh yes. Yes! The Fitzrovia chapel has amazing concerts and is used as the wedding venue. And the, the most fortunate thing… we’re furious, of course, as it’s called, the Fitzrovia Chapel and not the Middlesex chapel. But the trust selling flats to Asians and Middle Eastern gentlemen, they didn’t want anything associated with hospitals or death. So everything you in the Middlesex sort of…eradicated. So in, in the brochure about the new block, when it was coming, they had a big estate agent type thing across the road. Wasn’t going to mention that it was ever a hospital. They mentioned that famous pop singers live nearby, also near Oxford street. Do you know, no, no mention. And the fact that of course there’ve been a morgue underneath and you don’t mention, don’t mention that. And the Jewish chapel obviously went, but the remaining Fitzrovia chapel. It’s, it is so beautiful. And we, as a part of this other thing, the Charles Bell group for the archives, we’re getting all glass windows all properly, photographed and recorded. So if it’s really…, but they won’t call it the Middlesex Chapel, but when, when they have a concert there, which, or something that’s to do with the Middlesex, they always put in brackets formally the Middlesex chapel.

 

Interviewer

Okay.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

So that’s their concession.

Interviewer

So there we are, they’ve decided that you’re going to move and you find yourself surprisingly, perhaps from your point of view, the Chairman of this new group?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Well, yes. So Sir Peter Dixon was, the Chairman was very good to us at the Middlesex. And so he asked me to form a shadow committee, a year before the hospital was going to close. So we would be working in the years’ time and have to get it to Charity Commission, obviously that took a bit longer. So we had to merge with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the UCLH Friends, and the St Peter’s Friends, which are the, the waterworks hospitals. So we all had different amounts of money. UCLH said they wanted to use all their money up. They didn’t want to put anything into the merged one. So that was what one was dealing with. And the Middlesex nurses wouldn’t talk to the UCLH ones. I mean, there was a great competition. We were always going to merge with Mary’s. So Tottenham Court Road road was like the Iron curtain.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

So we didn’t…yes. The Medical Schools, which I was a part of, merged earlier, and that was quite amicable. The hospital was, you know, difficult.

Interviewer
Yes. And, and what about the friends group?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

So, the Friends Group. So we all met, UCLH said they wanted all there committee to come on it. So where would you sit everybody? so we, the rest of us, just… and so that actually was the…you’ve got a copy of the minutes of the shadow committee of the people who first,who first were there. So it was Lorna Citron from the UCLH, still alive and well, might be quite interesting to talk to, Jenny Leohnis from the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and the other key people were the Roses from St. Peters. Now the problem was, that the Roses, that St Peters, had quite a lot of money from a sale of a house.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

We had a big request from Middlesex And I think I might have said it. Yes, so this is quite interesting. We had a big bequest, which we from the Middlesex, we never knew what it actually was, how it got to us, but we did have this £30,000 to give every year. So St.Peters had this Harding and Jackson bequest, which went and, and was from a house. And they had said that the money must be ring fenced and only used for nephrology and urology, which was a bit difficult because all that had gone up to the Royal Free, which was a different hospital together. So we said, no, the money should all be pooled with us. So Fiona, this is where Fiona came into reality with her links with the Royal family, and the Royal solicitors, Farrers. At the end it was all done amicably.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

So she rang up Farrers and explained this problem about this £700,000 or something, which we should be having. And, and the nice solicitor who she knew there said, “Give me all the papers and I’ll look at them.” So I, got all the papers there. Fiona gave them all to her. She looked at them and she said she would like to convene a meeting with the Treasurer of each hospital at Farrers, and she will tell us of her thoughts. So, we all sat around the table. Philip Boyes was the Treasurer from the Trustees for us. Oh, we’d had meetings all over the place to, before that, trying to be come to some sense, common sense, but he wasn’t going to give in. So went all around the table and she, then she said, “no, no, this, this should go into the general pool. This isn’t, this cannot be called, be ring fenced, what have you to say?” And they just completely shut up. She said, “If you want this in writing, I’m afraid that will cost you Three or Five thousand. But I am quite happy if you are all happy today, to not charge you anything.” So we all looked at the treasurers and Philip, and he, he agreed. And afterwards he said, “Well done Gillian.” And I think he organised that very well. I mean, honestly, the trouble he caused me.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

So we got, and so then I forget what amount…

Interviewer

So you must have started off with quite a reasonable sum of money.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Yes. So we did. UCLH obviously hardly had anything because they used it all up, but, but we did have some money. Yes. And so we had this meeting and everybody then was, seemed to be very, very happy. Somebody called Sue Garrett was the amazing Secretary of the League of Friends. But she and I, she, and I just sort of sorted this out over the year. So, but by 2005, we had our first AGM of the new Friends. And so you have got the minutes of the first shadow committee, and the minutes of the first AGM of the new, the new one, just which it sort of puts it…And so the new one without Peter Dixon’s, the chairman’s support. It would’ve been very difficult.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

He was absolutely, you know, absolutely, really supportive. And so our first grant, obviously we confirmed that we wanted to continue the radio and the magic show, and we wanted to do something also quite big, you know, just, and we had our £30,000 from our Middlesex that we always really gave. And it just so happened that the Glaziers Company when there’s a new build the Glaziers Company have a competition for students. And when the new build of the UCLH was being thought about, the Glazers, there was a Glazers prize. It’s nothing to do with us, but there’s this wonderful “sun” down in the radiotherapy, down in the basement. And so the next year they’d gone somewhere else, but they knew there was going to be a new build with the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and said, you know, would we, they’d asked the hospital would, would anybody fund it?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

So they, the hospital, Peter Dixon came to us and said, would you consider funding a piece of glass glasswork on the maternity unit, an internal waiting area, which is very gloomy, very dark. And I haven’t unfortunately got a picture of it, but it’s all lit from behind. So it’s, it’s really fun. And so, it was quite fun. Because one was on the short list and went to the Glaziers Company and saw this lovely girl from Swansea getting the prize. She, her family had never been to London before. And so they were, they were so excited, you know, it was a lovely occasion, but that’s, you can’t, that’s, that’s the winner. So they got a nice piece of artwork and you can back light it and easily change the bulbs and it’s still there. So that was our first big grant. And as I say, continuing doing the things that we’d done before, and then we’d started, we did help a lot with the art and, and support Guy Noble.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

And we had somebody called Francis Newman who did things like, we didn’t support this, but she, did all our, you know, competitions. She did it mainly in the pediatrics. And then she went to the elderly, but in the pediatrics, for instance, we had a competition for the children for a Christmas card that we would use and sell. So I, I’ve only got a couple of them. They were tear offs. You see? But the children did those. And there, there were quite some that were really quite fun. The one they, yes. And they sold very well and made a lot of money and haven’t got all, all, all the ones and, and another one we did. So this Francis Newman, she did drawing the hospital, I think, paid her for this, but she did pictures of all the staff, you know, the porters. Okay. It’s just, just a nice thing. Nice thing to do.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

I think we were going to fund it, but the hospital decided to fund it, which was good. because UCLH arts, so, and what else? And, and then of course the, another big one we did was the Queen Square Neurology. Where people, the St. Charles hospital, neurology patients, stroke patients moved there and their day room was appalling. I mean, they’re going to stay there for three months, you know? We did a really nice day room, completely furnished, like a sitting room where they could. Yes. And they were all very appreciative. And one of our colleagues, we raised £7,000 for that. And we did a concert at the Boltons. One of our trustees, I got her in as a fundraiser, she’s sort of a distant relative, but I knew she was a fundraiser. And I said, I rang her up and I said “Hey, we need you on the committee. We’ve got to raise some money.”

 

Interviewer

And so this was about 2010, 2011. You were raising the money for that?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Yes.

 

Interviewer

Which of course, £7,000 was even more then, than it is now.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Yes. So, so you’d be very active by the committee. So that was our big fundraising one. Yes. So, but, you know, I had enormous support. It was rather brilliant from Elizabeth Garrett Anderson one of their trustees, another member by marriage of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson family was a solicitor, but she wasn’t working. So she was brilliant because she was, I was an ideas person, but she dotted the eyes and crossed the Ts. I, I couldn’t evolve with that. So she was brilliant. So we had to get all through the Charity Commission for the new, the new charity. Absolutely. Which was absolute nightmare. But I mean, she did it, so I didn’t have to do that.

 

Interviewer

Was there anything else that you felt you wanted to tell us today?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

I’m trying to think.

 

Interviewer

You’ve told us lots of lovely stories.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

They’re lots of memories, but really not, not, yes. I mean, it was such a good team I had for the UCLH. We interviewed for somebody before we’d left the Middlesex for the shadow committee for a Secretary where she was much more than a secretary. She was sort of a PA and actually now I think Cynthia Burton became the Chairman of the Friends of the Homeopathic. So it’s whatever you believe in, you know, the chaplaincy, when the chap, because in a brand new hospital there were all these departments that, didn’t have basic things and the poor chaplaincy next door didn’t have any filing cabinets. You know? I mean very basic things. So we gave them filing cabinets, lots and lots of little day rooms off the wards just wanted, you know, just a little bit of help. So we gave lots of grants, you know, under £3000 where needed.

 

Interviewer

It’s a bit like when you move house, you suddenly discover what you haven’t got.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Or if you haven’t got yes, yes.

 

Interviewer

Excellent.

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

And the person that took over for me sadly died, which was Peter Dixon’s wife Judith.

 

Interviewer

That’s a shame. So it sounds like there, you were happily retiring from a paid job and you’ve been caught up in lots of adventures for 20 years realistically?

 

Gillian Vaughan Hudson

Absolutely.

 

Interviewer

Yes. And you’ve got lots of stories to tell and lots to bring together. So that’s been lovely to hear and we look forward to finishing this recording offer and letting you hear a copy. Thank you ever so much.