Interviewer (00:00):

Could I start by asking your name?

Julia (00:02):

Julia Davis.

Interviewer

Thank you, Julia. And what Friends group are we talking about today?

Julia

Bridgnorth Hospital League of Friends.

Interviewer

Thank you. And could I ask how old you are?

Julia

74.

Interviewer

Nice to meet you. Now I’ve already picked up that you have been involved in the NHS as a career. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Julia

Yes. I left school at 18, and went to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, to train as an enrolled nurse, as it was in those days. And in my late thirties, I did what they can refer to as a conversion course, having moved to work in Bridgnorth Hospital, as we call it now as a Senior Enrolled Nurse. So, I had quite a lot of experience working in the casualty department as we called it then because we had quite seriously ill people brought in by ambulance. Also, in the operating theatre, because of what I’d done prior to working at Bridgnorth, I worked in operating theatres in intensive care as well as ward work. So, I was able to work each shift in Bridgnorth, which is the way it run, I knew when I arrived which area that I would be working in.

Julia

If I’d upset the senior nurse and staff, I used to be sent to the ward to do the baths, which I really enjoyed, because personal care is so important to me. And it was like a little joke as far as myself, and my colleagues were concerned. At the time, I had young children, and I didn’t work for five years when they were little. And I did a Back to Nursing course, and I met a lady who was the Matron at Bridgnorth at that time and she said, “oh, I can find you a few hours.” So, I came on the Bank, and my husband didn’t work Thursday afternoons, and Sunday mornings, so he was able to look after the children. And I did those two short little shifts, and I probably did that for two and a half years, and then I was able to increase my hours.

Julia

But I stayed on the Bank for a long time. At that time, the League of Friends were very obvious to me. Bridgnorth League of Friends, in the 1970s and 80s, had a little kiosk in the casualty department, and outpatient department, which at that time was a wooden hut basically. It was a very manageable building on the end of the hospital site. And the ladies that ran this area, they would do teas, and coffees for outpatients, or anybody that was suitable, that were waiting to be seen in the casualty department. And they also had a trolley that they would take around the ward. Health and safety nightmare. Giant kettle and boiling water.

Julia

And they would sell chocolates, and toiletries, and all that sort of thing. So, I was very aware of the League of Friends, plus the fact I’ve lived in Bridgnorth since I was three. Mum and Dad moved here then. And a lot of the ladies knew my family, knew my mother, because my mother was always involved with various charities in the town. And one of the things that, when I had my eldest son in the maternity unit here, the ladies came round with a trolley, and my in-laws were businesspeople in the town. And it was a bit like a fairy story, because around my bed and around my child’s crib were all the ladies from the League of Friends cooing over my child, and crossing his palm with silver, which was very exciting. And they were your League of Friends ladies, which was lovely.

Julia

I worked all these various little shifts, sometimes more than others, for 12 years here at the hospital. I did the operating theatre, worked in sessions, and because of my skills I was employed to do these very sessions, and it fitted in with my time. And because I’ve got this funny contract, they kept this, Ms. Walker kept this funny contract for me, and it meant for the six weeks that the children had off in the summer, I didn’t come to work. It was very good, while they were at school, because I was either doing outpatients or the casualty department as well as predominantly the theatre which were sessions, it worked very well with school time as well. So, I was very lucky from that point of view,  at the time when they decided that they were going to build Telford Hospital, and downgrade or even close all the community hospitals in Shropshire to pay for it.

Julia

I thought, “Oh my goodness, I better get, you know, get sorted, and find myself a job.” And I did apply to Telford, but Bridgnorth really got their act together, and fundraised big time to save the operating theatre, which saved the hospital. Because if you’ve got an operating theatre, and a treatment centre, and a good working minor injuries or casualty department as they referred to us, then it kept the hospital as more of an acute unit as opposed to a community hospital, where you’ve just got the elderly end of life or some rehabilitation for people. And the local, strangely, the local businessman who underwrote the fundraising to keep that going, we had his cousin in the operating theatre, and I said to her, “well you are going to be one of our last people because they’re going to close us.” And she went home and said, “they’re going to close the hospital.” So, I think that was a bit of a catalyst going along, because being the wife of a local businessman as well, he knew me and cornered me in the street and said, “what’s this all about?” And I said, “well I’m not sure I’m allowed to say but, this Save the Hospital fund became quite a thing.” I was not allowed to get involved because I was employed.

Julia

But on a personal note, I then decided that, you know, things were going to move forward, and I actually applied, and got a post in the A&E department at Telford, which was run very differently than from today. However, because I’ve got certain skills, and I worked there for some time. My mother became, when she had Parkinson’s, became unwell. I couldn’t do the shifts, and I got a job in the operating theatres, predominantly day surgery, but Wolverhampton because they were social hours. And most of the time while I was working at Wolverhampton, they had an open cheque book with the University, so I did lots of courses. I’ve discovered that pretty much every seven, seven and a half years, I got bored and changed specialties.

Julia

And also, if you live in Bridgnorth you’ve got to travel. So, we’ve got quite a lot of big hospitals that we can go to. They’re all sort of 20, 22 miles away so. Which is what I did, on their Bank or whatever, and got all these skills. Unfortunately, nine and a half years ultimately, I came back from Wolverhampton, and went back into A&E at Telford. Wonderful team, very happy time, very, very, very busy. A lot of learning, and had a couple of shifts from hell in charge of the units. And I went to my husband, and I said, “The boys are grown up. They’ve all got jobs, I don’t need to work anymore. We can afford for me to give up.” And he goes, “yes alright.” I went into work and she knew what I was going to say, and she said, “Oh, there’s a job here at the university, this would suit you.” I said, “Oh, you want to get rid of me?”

Julia

“No,” she says, “I don’t, but I know you are going to give me your notice, aren’t you?” And I went and worked for Staffordshire University, and it was just after the Francis Report, which I think you probably know about the Francis Report. And at that time, Staffordshire were in a terrible state. It was a miracle that they hadn’t picked up on Shrewsbury, because it was in the same state. And they set up a team to bring back the things that they’d got rid of in Project 2000, which were training rooms, clinical rooms to train, and myself with this small team, we set up two clinical training rooms on both sides. And for seven and a half years, I worked for the University, teaching clinical skills. Ultimately, not only teaching student nurses but post registration medical students, and first year doctors. They used to farm me out, as well, to places.

Julia

And we set up, and we had fancy mannequins, and all sorts of things. A very happy time. Just as I was retiring, I volunteered with SaTH, the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust. They had a small team of us as volunteers to go around, and help with audits in the hospitals. And I was asked to sit on the control of infection committee and enjoyed doing that. Sadly, after five years, they had a change of Senior Nursing Director who didn’t like volunteers, and sacked the lot of us. I shouldn’t say that. And around that time, I was looking for something else to do, and our now wonderful coffee shop manager, who’s been a friend for many years, said, “Will you come and join the League?” And I’ve been involved with the League for eight years now.

Interviewer

So, one of the things I picked up is that you are quite interested in the history of the League.

Julia

Yes.

Interviewer

Could you just give me a bit of a synopsis on how you think the League started and got going?

Julia

Well, because we have a lot of old minute books, and I prevented them going on the fire, I’ve gone through them and I discovered that, in the Bridgnorth area, there were lots of facilities a long time ago in the 1800s. But in 1956, the townspeople joined together because they realised that the various hospitals — certainly there were three areas — that needed support for their patients, and inmates. And there is a little bit of history about that, although the documentation’s a bit sketchy. And these local people formed, it wasn’t officially a League of Friends. Each building, there was a blind home, what had been a workhouse, that predominantly looked after the elderly, and a few mental health patients. I suppose they were dementia patients, really — they were older —and what was called Bridgnorth Infirmary at that time, really to help provide the extra bits of comfort.

Julia

The television, some extra nice chairs for people to sit in, fundraising coffee mornings but, they included the people that were either living there, or patients within the infirmary, who at that time, stayed longer. So, if you had a procedure done, you were in hospital for at least a fortnight. So, newspapers were bought, games were bought for the ward areas for people too, and books, and a trolley service for the comforts of people in these various places. And it wasn’t until 1984, when it was officially well inaugurated into the Charity Commission and had got a charity number. But it had been running as a professional sort of charity. The first documents that I can find are in these minute books are from 1971. At that time, the three main places that they were supporting had their own little committees to, again, organise fundraising and support.

Julia

You know they’d go shopping for people, and things like that, and they would feed back to a main committee. They had a representative from each place that would feed back from the main committee. They had, by sometimes some years, they had bimonthly meetings and sometimes they had quarterly meetings. Some of the information is sketchy in our minute books about the names of people. However, there is reference to the names of the people on the main committee. And also, there are references to the fundraising that they had. Alongside that, in the mid 1980s, was when they decided that the hospital was under threat, and there was this subcommittee formed to support the hospital. And alongside that, not long after the hospital had a manager as opposed to a matron, he was the one that instigated the change of name from infirmary to hospital.

Julia

Because he felt infirmary was a bit old fashioned. It was a little bit, like in the health service, they went through a period of time of referring to everybody as a client, not a patient. The League of Friends continued until into the 1990s to have subcommittees for what had been Innage House, which had been the workhouse, and the blind hospital. And then because of the changes within the health service, the League predominantly became for Bridgnorth Hospital. And I can’t remember the exact date now, but Innage House was started to be run by the County Council. And then the advent of care homes, Innage house was run as a County Council care home for the elderly. And, subsequently, they sold off that bit, and they built a new modernised care home, that is subsequently being sold off to a charitable trust as these groups are, as care homes, which is a really nice facility in Bridgnorth.

Julia

But it meant then that the League of Friends no longer supported it. They concentrated on being the Bridgnorth Hospital League of Friends, and that home has its own volunteers that do fundraising for them. And the blind home was sold off, and is a private care home, which also have their own fundraising, whatever they do. But it’s a fee-paying care home. The League of Friends, when I first got involved, our coffee shop was very small. It was obviously just after the hospital had been redeveloped, with the wards all being rebuilt, and the old buildings, which are on a preservation order, upgraded. A new wing was built that has a minor injuries unit, and above it, is a small maternity unit, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy. They run that upstairs. Although they all have separate managers because of the way that the community trust runs it, they all know, and I go and talk to them regularly to make sure that they, if they want a piece of equipment that they know the trust won’t provide for them, then we will fundraise and provide the money for them.

Julia

I’m a bit of a pain for them really, when they wanted to upgrade our x-ray department, not long after I, within the first year of me getting involved with the League, they asked for 160,000 pounds. We’d had a big legacy recently, so we could have very easily written a cheque. And I said to my colleagues on the committee, “please don’t say yes to the money until I have found out how it’s going to be supported.” So, I spoke to the Head of Radiology at SaTH, and I said, “is this compatible? Will it speak to other hospitals?” Basically, which is very important. “Who’s going to run it? Who’s going to train the staff? Is it future proofed?” I spoke to the reps to make sure that because technology changes so much, so apparently, they can take a module out, and put the latest module in, and all that sort of thing.

Julia

So, we actually did ultimately give them the 160,000 pounds. I very proud to say that, you know, we have bought new beds for the wards, and we’re very fortunate from that point of view. But I suddenly realised that the coffee shop was starting to get busier, and the ladies were struggling. And because of my background, I was asked to look up the health and safety issues, and the food handling issues, in the coffee shop to make sure we’re up to date. It was a bit dire. So, we had a little sit down and I said, “will the Trust let us alter the coffee shop round so we’ve got a bigger kitchen and a better serving area?” Because it was just a hatch. So, we basically drew in the back of an envelope type of, “oh, we could do it like this and have this like this.”

Julia

Then we got the Trust, and engineers, and architects, and everybody involved, and we paid for the coffee shop to be reconfigured. And it’s now raising thousands,  and thousands of pounds each year because it’s being so well run by the volunteers, and it’s a safe environment for them to work in. And I feel really proud that we’ve done that. As on top of the fact that it means we’ve got this really lovely area, so that we can have Christmas on Tuesday. We have Christmas songs and a tea party. We have Easter and summer fundraising parties in there. It’s well used by the groups who want to come in. This group of ladies that have got a dementia group, they are referred to as the Butterfly Cafe, and we have other groups that want to use it because it’s a nice environment. So that brings revenue in. Knit and Natter. So, it’s quite becoming quite a social hub, and people that are in the town know that they can come, and get a really nice cup of tea, and piece of homemade cake. So, it’s just very, very, very,  well used from that point of view.

Interviewer

So, this has been fascinating, and I feel like I could keep talking to you all day, and you’d have stories, and other bits of narrative. Is there anything else that you thought today you wanted to say to me you haven’t had the chance to say yet?

Julia

Only that the Matron that gave me the job originally, Ms. Walker, who became Chairman of the League when she retired, fantastic lady. She was a State Certified Midwife as well. So, supported the midwifery unit at that time. Also, for the centenary of the hospital, and I wasn’t working here then, she brought out this little leaflet, which is still readily available. But also, a lady that I’d known many years who was also a retired nurse, didn’t work here. She worked at the Royal Free and the Royal Marsden. She’s a local lady from here, has written a book, that is still available in the Bridgnorth Library, about the history of hospitals, and who supported it then financially,  prior to this hospital being taken over by the NHS in the 1940s. Her name’s Jill and it’s not a big volume, but it is a very, very good historical writing for the history of healthcare in this area, and the sort of people like the Burgesses of the town got together, and that sort of thing. So, for people that come into the town, it’s the sort of information that I always feel they should know.  The history of why we’ve got a hospital here, that’s so fantastic. And how it links in with what Linda Widows was saying about the work that they did. This quite a small group of people to keep our hospital here, and keep it almost an acute unit that the general public don’t, people don’t think about health service till they need it. And that’s what I feel. Yes.

Interviewer

Thank you ever so much. It’s been lovely to hear your story today. Thank you.