Linda Widdows
The surgeons were not able to operate as comfortably, happily, safely, they were going to close the operating theatre, and we’d just saved the hospital. We were shocked. There were public meetings of course, and somebody came along to tell us that,” well, if they did close it, instead of refurbishing it or doing whatever, then they would save quite a lot money, and this could go to Telford.” And one person in the audience at this meeting said, “how much money does it actually cost?” And the person on the platform said, “about £25,000 a year,” which in today’s money seems like nothing. But back then it was a lot. So there were people in the town, and very good people in the town who said they would help us, and support us.
Linda Widdows
We said, “right, what if we raise the £25,000 for a year, keep the operating theatre going, and investigate whether it’s actually cost effective or not.” And basically he’d backed himself into a corner. So various things happened. There were things in the local press, and so on, and so forth. And we ended up with a promise to raise £50,000, two years worth of running costs, because we realised it would take that long to investigate what was happening. We managed to communicate with the surgeons. They would carry on working here, they liked it, and we would raise this money. And so we did. And I was probably at the forefront of that, trying to get people involved. We had events happening very frequently.
Linda Widdows
People in the town did all sorts of stuff, you know. We had a day when somebody had a wedding in a marquee, and they donated the marquee the next day for us to hold an auction. We raised about 4,000 pounds in the day. It was just loads of things. Tiny things that raised 50 quid, other things that raised thousands. And we managed to raise, I believe someone will have the figures, something like £97,000. And we paid the Health Authority 1/12th of £25,000 on the first of each month. We just drip fed them, you know, the money. There was a man in the town, a businessman who anonymously backed us. He said if there was a shortfall, he would supply the shortfall until we’d raised it. He was not going to pay it. But he did insist that we set up a proper charity, and we had trustees.
Linda Widdows
There were four trustees, and I was one of them. He set it all up, paid for solicitors, none of that cost us or the League anything. And then we formed a group called Operation Enterprise, which then fundraised. And we raised all this money. Whilst all that was going on there was a small group of us who put together all the figures of operations, what it costs, everything, communicating very, very regularly with the Shropshire Health Authority, not the Regional Health Authority. They closed the operating theatre down officially at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Possibly 1985 for the start of 86. And again, that figure can be checked. It’s all in the archives. So it started again on the 1st of January. We paid them, whatever, 1/12th of £25,000 is. And the surgeons kept coming.
Linda Widdows
And we managed to keep on going for the next two years. We proved that Bridgnorth was actually more cost effective than Shrewsbury or Telford, although, in doing that, we realised that there were certain operations that were going to become a little too risky for Bridgnorth because we didn’t have full resuscitation equipment, and so on. So certain things were cut out, but other things were brought in. And then when we proved it, it was, “we need a light, and we need this, and we need that.” And the Health Authority said, oh, well that’s going to cost X thousand pounds. And we’d got whatever it was in the bank, left over from our 50 grand. And we said, “right, well, we’ll split the cost with you.”
Linda Widdows
And they said, “no”. We said “that’s our bit, you find the rest.” And they said, “no, you put that in, and we’ll split what’s left,” which was a bit cheeky, but we agreed. Then they started rebuilding, you know, the lights, the main thing about the lights was that the electric meters, and things that we had at the time were not powerful enough to take the new big theatre lights that they wanted. So everything had to be redone. Then when they got it all priced up, a few of us looked at their list, and discovered there were things they hadn’t ordered. Certain things weren’t costed. So we then did a bit of an Anika Rice. We contacted lots of local businesses, and said, “you know, we need taps for the sinks because they’ve got sinks but no taps.” And people donated. The floor was a special kind of Italian marble floor. There was nothing to protect it. And they were going to bring down the ceiling. So a company provided plywood and hardboard to protect the floor. Just lots, and lots of things were donated because they weren’t on the shopping list from the Health Authority.
Interviewer
So what I’m hearing is that you, at that point, you really harnessed the community feeling towards this location.
Linda Widdows
Absolutely. Yes.
Interviewer
And do you think that community feeling still exists today?
Linda Widdows
Yes, I think it does. I’m not nearly so connected with the League of Friends anymore. It was quite a few years ago. I’m still a member. I still attend various things, but my life has moved in other directions. So I’m not quite in the actual activities all the time. But I do think it still exists. You see things happening in the newspapers, and there’s still things going on. The fact that the coffee shop is so well used, you know. I mean, I remember the days when we had a trolley, and that trolley was wheeled around the wards during the afternoon visiting, so visitors could buy a cup of tea or coffee because patients were getting one from the nurses. On clinic days, in a tiny, tiny place in the hospital, they had this little cupboard, a coffee cupboard. And they opened it up, and sold coffee, and tea to people waiting for appointments, making just a few pounds a week. Literally. I mean, you know, less than £10 or £20. And now we’ve got the coffee shop that is a thriving enterprise, raising really good money for the league.
Interviewer
You know, I suppose where I’m at, and I wondered if you’d agree, is that we’ve come to a place where you have, through hard work, you’ve secured this building, but there is always no guarantee that it will be here forever. And it may be that people need to put on their fighting armour again at some point.
Linda Widdows
Absolutely.
Interviewer
And that’s what we need to keep the town aware of.
Linda Widdows
Definitely. yes. And I think because, in my experience anyway, I’ve been very fortunate in a way, because I’ve lived through some of these really big events. The next thing after saving the operating theatre was the centenary. And although we didn’t have to do all those other things, and I mean, thinking about the hours, and, hours, and hours I spent looking through figures, and checking things, and what have you, we didn’t have to do all that, but we had the centenary, and it was “what are we going to do to make it special?” And the thing we came up with was let’s have a fundraising event once a month throughout the year, and let’s have a goal of an amount of money to raise. I think the goal was £25,000 because we knew we’d done it before, but we’d have to keep it in the public eye, which we did.
Linda Widdows
And we did something at the time that was very controversial, and raised many eyebrows. I couldn’t do all that. I didn’t have the knowledge or the energy really, after all the other things had been happening. And some of the people that had been in it, it wasn’t just me. There was a team of us, but I tended quite often to be the voice because of being Secretary. I knew I hadn’t got the energy to do all of that. And what we did was, there was a man in the town who was a professional fundraiser. So we asked him, and we coped with the storm. And so he took a percentage. But he arranged things that we could never do. You know, we had a cricket match with members of the cast from Emmerdale, and some famous cricketers, retired cricketers.
Linda Widdows
I can’t remember all the things, but various other things. We had a cricketer come, and talk to people, one of these onstage things ‘an evening with’, lots of various things he arranged that we could never have done. And we raised this huge amount of money, and the money was going to be for an endoscopy camera because they did endoscopies here, and arthroscopies on the knees, and joints, and things, you know, but they didn’t have a camera so that people could see. It was the surgeon looking down an eyepiece, and doing things. And they wanted to be able to train people, and let other people see. So we decided we’d go for it. And we did. We raised the money, and we got the endoscopy camera, and a few extra bits of kit. Then the surgeon, Mr. Summers, who was an orthopaedic surgeon who did lots of arthroscopies. had an open day for the League of Friends members to come along, and see how it worked. And I remember standing in this room in the theatre, terrified that he was going to get a person on the bed and open his knee.
Linda Widdows
I think everybody felt the same. We were all really scared, wondering what was going to happen. And then he said, “right, I’m going to perform an arthroscopy on this red pepper,” and he put a red pepper there. And he showed us, and you could see the tiny seeds inside, and all the veins, he said “and this is what I can see in a person’s knee. This is what we do, and now I’m going to put a little pair of scissors in and I’m going to cut off the offending bit.” And he cut off a seed, and pulled it out, this is what we spent all this money on, it was fantastic. So for me, really exciting times, very educational, and it raised the awareness, and the feeling in the town.
Interviewer
Absolutely. Yes. It sounds a fascinating time.
Linda Widdows
It was. And I just hope that, you know, there are other things that are going on that perhaps I’m not aware of, or that there is something that we can plan for the future. That there’s something else that’s going to happen.
Interviewer
So are you still involved in volunteering at all? Do you do other things or what, where’s life at for you at the moment?
Linda Widdows
I’m just with family. I had been volunteering with other things for a while, but when lockdown came, I had to stop because I was doing other things. And since lockdown, I haven’t kind of picked up the reins again very much. And this last 12, 18 months, I’ve had a series of health issues that I’ve been struggling with.
Interviewer
I think there’s a reality that there are different seasons for people when they’re volunteering. And this isn’t quite your season for being in the forefront. But what I pick up is that we shouldn’t ignore the fact that they may come back, depending on what the challenges that’s faced and what captures your imagination for something that you want to make a difference about. Now, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed hearing your story today. I haven’t needed to say very much at all. But is there anything that you wanted to say today that you haven’t had the chance to say?
Linda Widdows
I was born in Manchester, brought up in a big city, had my children in Manchester and was used to how it was in the big hospitals, you know, and coming here to me has been a delight. The town is lovely, you know, but the hospital, and the medical services at the moment, things are changing somewhat, and that worries me. You know, the GPs used to be responsible for doing all the ward rounds in the hospital, and now the powers that be are changing those things. But all around the country, things are happening in GP practices, and that bothers me. So yes, at some point I think I will have a surge of energy, and will want to start shouting from the treetops about something that’s not quite right you know. My family is spread out, so visiting , and seeing grandchildren involves a lot of effort. They’re in this country, but it’s still a lot of effort. I’m so glad that my husband changed his job, and we ended up here.
Interviewer
I think Bridgnorth are very lucky you ended up here too. So thank you so much for your time. I’ve really appreciated you sharing your story. Thank you.
