Interviewer

So, first of all, can I start by asking your name,

Kathy Fox

Kathleen Fox.

Interviewer

Which League of Friends are we talking about today?

Kathy Fox

Deeside Community Hospital.

Interviewer

And could I ask how old you are?

Kathy Fox

Yes, I will be 93 next week.

Interviewer

Thank you. Tell me what first got you involved in hospitals?

Kathy Fox

I think it was at school, and chapel. Yes, because the chapel was our social life, our religious life, and everything we did was through the chapel. Yes. And so I’ve been always a strong Methodist. I’d also been the eldest of a family, well it was of six eventually, but during the war it was less than six. It was three or four. And I’ve always had children to look after, looking after children,  I can amuse, and I can play with them better than I could make you a cake

Interviewer

<Laugh>.

Kathy Fox

Yes, I could. With the children, it’s grand. We had our own hospital, and we all had our role to doing that. Our own hospital, which was, I think it’s the children. If I was having my grandchildren, they would be at different age groups. But if we decided that I was going to, we’d have a game that we were playing, and I’d go to Llangollen with them, and we’d go on the rocks there. And amusing children was what I enjoyed doing, looking after.

Interviewer

And that took you into nursing?

Kathy Fox

Yes, it did. When I first started nursing, I went to Alder Hey in Liverpool because you could go once you did school certificates. It was school certificate then, wasn’t it? Once you had school certificate you could go to Alder Hey, but straight from school. Yes. So, and I wanted to take them all because what was happening then, it was in a very poor area of Liverpool. And I wouldn’t hear a word said against the people there because the circumstances they were living in, you would not believe,  the old tenement buildings were still there. And you would have four families on a landing. And that landing would include the toilet, and bathroom between the four families. And they would have flock mattresses. So that very often if a child had soiled a flock mattress, you’d find they’d have to empty the flock out, and launder the cover. Yes. So that opened a lot of poverty to me, but the people, I don’t think that of all patients that I delivered, there wasn’t one, I didn’t have a little gift from when I finished visiting, if it was a Mars bar, they always wanted to give the nurse a gift to say thank you. So I wouldn’t hear a word said.  It was Scotland Road that I was on.

Interviewer

So what in your journey brought you from Alder Hey to Deeside?

Kathy Fox

Well, first of all, from Alder Hey, I did my first part national exam. And then I came to do my general nursing in Chester Royal Infirmary. Yes. And Chester Infirmary, there was a time when I was to do Midwifery, and you have to witness 10 deliveries before you can even scrub up with a midwife. And the very first one that I saw was a lady in her forties. And she looked absolutely worn out. She looked worn out during the delivery, and she went through all the birthing pains. And I remember going into the sluice room with her placenta, because I had to examine the placenta to make sure it was complete. Yes. I had a good training there. But it put me off. Well, as I thought, having children.  I said to my mum, I don’t know whether I ever want to have any children. She persuaded me to go back. She said, “if you don’t go back, you will regret it all your life”. So I did go back and I stayed with it.

Interviewer

Yes. Excellent. So you went to Chester, you got your training

Kathy Fox

I did, I went to Leeds to do Midwifery.

Interviewer

Okay. And then how do you get to North Wales? How does that happen?

Kathy Fox

Because I lived in Wrexham.

Interviewer

Okay.

Kathy Fox

Okay. Yes. I went to school at Wrexham.

Interviewer

Okay. Yes. So at some point you get married presumably, and you have, you do decide that you are going take the plunge, and you have children.

Kathy Fox

Yes. Yes.

Interviewer

And did you carry on working throughout that whole time or did you stop working?

Kathy Fox

I did stop working for a short time because I had twins. I wasn’t working too long because I used to work one night a week at the Wrexham Hospital, because they were always busy on a Friday night at the emergency department. And I used to take the twins to my Mums house in Llay, leave them there, go to work, come back, and do some shopping, go to the butchers, and usual thing. And then so I managed quite well, because I lived in a council house in Lime Grove.

Interviewer

Usually well built and spacious.

Kathy Fox

Yes,  and the garden, the garden was lovely. I was able to have a sandpit for the boys in the garden.

 

Interviewer

Absolutely. So I think in the earlier conversation, you said you were at the very first meetings where they were planning Deeside hospital. Is that right? So tell me about that from the very beginning.

Kathy Fox

Yes, I did. From the very beginning.

Interviewer

So before Deeside was even built, you were talking about it.

Kathy Fox

Yes. First of all, I was involved because I was giving the nursing input to what was being discussed prior to the place being built with the Deeside Hospital. They didn’t know where to site it first. So they were looking for different sites. There was one that was down through Hawarden and down to the busy terminal as well. Anyway, as I say, I did that, and I enjoyed it.

Interviewer

So you were a senior nurse. One assumes, if you were doing all of this by now

Kathy Fox

By then, yes. I was being promoted. Yes.

Interviewer

And so,they build Deeside. It’s all finished.

Kathy Fox

And I went to Deeside when they first decided on the site it was going to be, and I was a nursing input for it from the very beginning. Yes.

Interviewer

And they build it and they start to admit patients. And you then are working in the hospital. Is that right?

Kathy Fox

That’s right. I remember the Queen coming to open it.

Interviewer

Okay.

Kathy Fox

And I’ve got a photograph. We hadn’t had many patients at Outpatients there, so I was able to take my mother to the opening ceremony and see the Queen. And I introduced my mother to the Queen

Interviewer

Excellent.

Kathy Fox

So I’ve got a photograph of the Queen shaking my Mum’s hand.

Interviewer

That’s lovely.

Kathy Fox

Yes. And my Mum was, the tears were rolling down. She was so excited. Yes. And some of the things, I escorted the Queen around, and some of the things that the patients said to her, like one man said to her, “Eeh love, I like your outfit”. <Laugh>

Interviewer

<Laugh>.

Kathy Fox

But she had a way of answering them, without belittling them. It was lovely to see yes. Yes. It was really good. Yes.

Interviewer

So at some point you get involved with the League of Friends. How did you get involved with the League of Friends there?

Kathy Fox

Deeside Hospital? Because when I met my husband, I started to, I was already working at Meadows Lee. There were different types of hospitals then. It was a sanatorium. <Affirmative>. And then I got a, a job at  Meadows Lee. Yes. Chester Road. There’s a big driveway up to the top. And that was an isolation hospital. It was called Harden Isolation Hospital. So we had all kinds of infections there. And I think there were three separate buildings. And we had children, and adults there. And I got promoted to sister in charge of that hospital. And I enjoyed every, every minute.

Interviewer

And is that where you first met the League of Friends?

Kathy Fox

By then there was a small group of people that used to come, and I developed it from there. There was a special role that they could take. And certainly if we had patients who didn’t have visitors, I’d identify them and say they don’t have many visitors. So the League of Friends would go and chat to them. Yes. So that worked out very well, really.

Interviewer

And that was at Meadows Lee?

Kathy Fox

Yes. Yes.

Interviewer

So eventually you retire, you’ve done a huge career in the NHS, and you retire. And how did they persuade you then to get involved with the League of Friends after you’d retired?

Kathy Fox

Somebody must have come to ask me, haven’t they?

Interviewer

I think so. And you became the Chairman of the League of Friends quite quickly.

Kathy Fox

Yes. Because of what was happening. They weren’t calling them Leagues of Friends. They all had a different name for some reason

Interviewer

I first came across you when you were involved in the North Wales Committee of the Friends Groups, Leagues of Friends, and there was you, and there was Edna, and there was Phil James, and quite a lot of you. And it felt like you had a great rapport or relationship.

Kathy Fox

Yes, we did.

Interviewer

So did you enjoy that period of your life?

Kathy Fox

Well, I think we learned from each other, and what we were finding, because Leagues of Friends are, have all got their own identity. And they did very well. We used to have a meeting, not often, but frequently, maybe four times a year, five times a year. That would, happen. And we would share ideas of either fundraising or what we were doing for our patients. Yes.  That’s what they weren’t doing.

Interviewer

Now in the back of my mind, I think you’ve got an MBE, am I right? What did you get your MBE for?

Kathy Fox

That’s right. Charities.

Interviewer

Services to charity. And did you go down to London to get that? Do you remember? I expect you went to Buckingham Palace. And do you remember who gave it to you? Was it the Queen or was it one of the others?

Kathy Fox

Yes. It was the Queen.

Interviewer

Very nice.

Kathy Fox

It was marvelous to watch, because you were in an ante room. My escort was able to go, which was my sister, but she couldn’t go when I went to the Queen. Because the Queen gives you the honour. At the end, but behind the Queen, was another servant, I saw. And each person that came, he gave the Queen a summary of who they were, where she’s met them. And she says, of course, she asked me about “how is the new hospital going”? You know? And so it sounded as if she’d remembered. Somebody had just reminded her she’d opened a hospital.

Interviewer

So this has been lovely. Is there anything else that you thought you might want to tell me today? You haven’t had the chance to?

Kathy Fox

I, the only thing that I was so pleased to do was my Mum, my Mother, she could not believe that she had shaken hands with the Queen.

Interviewer

Excellent.

Kathy Fox

She was, oh, the tears were running down her cheeks with emotion.

Interviewer

That’s lovely. Yes. Thank you.