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Pamela Morton OBE, Friends of York Hospitals - York

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Pamela Morton OBE, Friends of York Hospitals

- York

At an early age Pam began volunteering to help refugees, at the end of the Second World War. Those values were to stay with her, not only in her career as a teacher but also through the many different volunteering initiatives she enthusiastically embraced.

Having faced health challenges herself, on retirement, perhaps The Friends of York Hospital was an obvious place for her to put renewed effort into volunteering. Almost by happenchance she found herself involved in the national body, that supports Friends groups (Attend) where her efforts were recognised with an OBE.

Volunteering that begins in the 1940s

Interviewer

So could I ask you your name?

Pamela Morton

Pamela Morton

Interviewer

With an OBE after?

Pamela Morton

With an OBE!

Interviewer

Excellent. And which Friends group are we talking about today?

Pamela Morton

The Friends of York Hospital.

Interviewer

And could I ask how old you are?

Pamela Morton

92, 91

Interviewer

Now Pamela, we’ve known each other a long time, and so I know quite a lot of your story, and what you’ve been involved in, but now we’re going to try, and capture that. So you started volunteering at quite a young age?

Pamela Morton

Yes.

Interviewer

So what was the first sort of volunteering, the first thing that you can remember getting involved in?

Pamela Morton

I was about 15 or 16 and we, we had a lot of people displaced, people who had no countries left to go back to after the war. And these people stayed in great numbers, around Bradford, and I did, I got very involved with them, because they were very interesting, and they wanted to share that stuff with you. So we had all a whole host of embroidery, dancing, music, and also seeing that they had everything they needed, like, their own language books in the library, and stuff like that, which was important for them, and things that they got terribly upset about, and which understandably, and of course there were countries, still sending people, coming out from refugees, for ages!

Interviewer

So today they would be countries that, for example, we might think of as Eastern Europe?

Pamela Morton

Yes. Latvia, Moldova etc.

Interviewer

And places. Presumably you knew very little about at 16, before you got involved in your volunteering?

Pamela Morton

Yes. Didn’t know anything too much about them at all, except that there was all the most horrible things that happened, and were still happening, of which we were aware. And so I was always trying, I can remember one time I got the schools, sixth form schools. I got them to knit blankets, and things, because as the people came out, they had nothing at that stage. It got more sophisticated. But then they sewed them up, and we sent them straight out to people. But it was very short, personal things. There wasn’t a great big organisation to get through.

Interviewer

And so there you are, you turn up at 16, relatively young?

Pamela Morton

Yes.

Interviewer

And what did they say to you? What was your task? How was it defined to you? What did they expect you to do?

Pamela Morton

Do? Well I was asked, I think originally asked to, when I was such a young girl, I was asked would I help raise funds. But then also, I came across the work of Chris Chataway,  and who was the other one that was with him? They were the ones that ran first under four minutes mile or something.

 

Interviewer:
the only name I know is Roger Bannister. But it may not have been…

 

Pamela Morton:
Yes, that’s him! And they became aware of these people who were, they were in a dreadful condition because not only had they come out from the country, where they were in a country, that was completely foreign to them, but they would be able to, then they would be taken over all, They’d have the opportunity of immigrating, because they hadn’t got a country to go back to.

 

Pamela Morton

Right. So it organised this thing, and it was fantastic because I then, the best thing was we got the idea of adopting these families. Well, it was too much to get a, Well no, I suppose we did have a few people that might have done it single-handed, but it really needed to have some quite big organisation behind them. And I used to go to the Mills. I knew a lot of the Bradford Mill families. I used to go, and tell them all about these people who were in the…, they call them hardcore refugees. And they couldn’t move them. And they were the ones that no one would sponsor. Like the one I first became aware of it only, he lost his arm in the war. Which war? I don’t know. There were people there that’d run out through the woods, knowing until that, they must not, under any circumstances, stop running until they got through the woods.

Pamela Morton

And then when they got through the woods, they could stop and regroup. This would be a little family. And they all set up, they would set off running. And this forest, now, I had no idea where it was, but it turned out it was up by Lithuania, or somewhere. And where they got through the forest, it was in a country that was reasonably friendly, that they were running from what would kill them. And so there was gunfire following them. They were not to stop. And I did know personally, one lovely girl called Svetlana, she was running, and she was carrying one of the younger children. And I know they went in with the mother was carrying, the father was carrying bigger ones, and the bigger children were carrying…It was a big family that went into these, huge big families, and running, running. And then don’t stop until you get out the other side, where you’re okay. And when they got out there were minus three children. Don’t know what ever had happened to them. Those little ones…

Interviewer

That’s very sad, isn’t it?

Pamela Morton

It was very, and it was, it was very easy to get really steamed up, and employed about it. Because I mean, how could you, if you knew what they’d gone through, firsthand, these people you were talking to and there were hundreds of thousands of them, and they were looking for people to sponsor them, so they could get away from where they weren’t. There was nowhere where they were nowhere, hadn’t even got a name, Horrible.

Interviewer

So in many ways, this is 75 years ago. The situation today, with Ukrainians must feel very similar for you watching it all.

Pamela Morton

Exactly. Exactly.

Interviewer

And the very fact that we’ve got families in the UK taking families they’ve never met into with them.

Pamela Morton

Yes, Exactly.

Interviewer

So it’s not new?

Pamela Morton

No, not me. I didn’t go.

Interviewer

No, no. But it’s not new nowadays. This idea of taking people in is not a new thing! It was happening several times before.

Pamela Morton

Oh, new. I thought you said, you No. Yes!

Interviewer

No. But I do think, we were talking on the phone the other day, and you said that if you were younger, you would’ve gone over to the border of Ukraine, and greeted people as they came across?

Pamela Morton

Yes. And you must not under any circumstances, be wearing green. It was a very unlucky color for them. And people, Friends of mine drove their cars over, and switched the headlights on so that people could see when they were running out, where they were and what was under their footing, it was very first hand. You know, you…

Interviewer

It, it’s quite shocking actually to think that, that even when we see it on the news today, it can feel very horrific. But it does feel a bit more organised than somebody with a pair of headlights. Which sounds a bit more like frankly something from the Sound of Music, to indicate where to escape.

Pamela Morton

And what they were lighting was, if they could get there, was sort of a, a safety barrier. If they could get through, and then they could, and then they could be resettled. The idea was to resettle, which would have to be, be not in that country because they didn’t have the country where, where they were didn’t exist, and where they’d come from didn’t exist.

An early experience of the NHS

Interviewer

So not surprisingly, perhaps if you were doing all this at 16, you took up a career in public service and you became a teacher?

Pamela Morton

Yes.

Interviewer

So can you tell me a little bit about your life as a teacher?

Pamela Morton

Yes. There was a big gap because I got ill when I was about 19 I think. So instead of being at university, which just should have been, I was in a sanatorium, which was an education in itself, which was hilarious and ridiculous.

Interviewer

And that’s because you had TB (Tuberculosis)?

Pamela Morton

Yes. Crazy.

Interviewer

And again, TB is something that we haven’t known about in this country for many years, and now appears to be just creeping back again doesn’t it?

Pamela Morton

Yes. Isn’t it interesting.

Interviewer

So there you are, you found yourself in the sanatorium?

Pamela Morton

Well yes. With all these extraordinary, hilarious, actually it wasn’t hilarious. It was terrible, but it was so funny. I was laughing, they used to put me in bed next to people that were depressed, to cheer them up.

Interviewer

Oh, okay. So how long were you in hospital for?

Pamela Morton

I was in about two years that time. And then they’d done all sorts of stuff to me because there was not the… what do you call the kind of medicine that’s made?

Interviewer

Antibiotics do you mean?

Pamela Morton

No…

Interviewer

Vaccines?

Pamela Morton

Vaccines and things. They hadn’t got them… And so really it was a very peculiar lifestyle though. So what were we going do? When I came out from there…

A career in public service

Interviewer

Well, I just wondered how, how… what made you go into teaching, and what your career in teaching felt like?

Pamela Morton

Oh yes. I see. So it was in conversation with my Mother’s friends. One thing, another one of them happened to be a teacher, and she was absolutely determined that I would love to be a teacher. I knew absolutely nothing about being a teacher, and so what I decided I would do, would be that I would train. But before I went on the training course, I was going to pay for, because at that time you got a card with a stamp on it, which was your National Health. And I would pay all of that double, or whatever it was, necessary to fill the card up completely, so that I would not have to declare that I’d ever been ill.

Interviewer

Okay, so you wanted to get that?

Pamela Morton

Behind me and gone, which I did. It took me quite a long time, and I had a very amusing time, very amusing time, being a secretary. Well my goodness, I couldn’t take that. I couldn’t take them down very well, the notes and things. And it was in an advertising agency, and well it had very highly amusing artists, doing all the different demonstrations. There would be this chap, dictating all this stuff away to me. And I’m like…and then over here there would be a couple of the artists, and they were taking down the notes, and typing what I was missing out!

Pamela Morton

And it was just an idiotic time, but quite fun.

Interviewer

So you went…

Pamela Morton

And so when I’d done all that, I knew that I would, could be a teacher, and that they were not going to dig up any unknown facts about my health. And also I wanted to get these National Health stamps complete. So I paid them up double or whatever. So I got it in. And that, I don’t know how I came to think so far ahead that I somehow or other realised that this might have some effect on the standard of pensions. . , how would I know that? I don’t know!

Interviewer

Probably one of your Mother’s friends again.

Pamela Morton

Probably. And of course I absolutely loved it.

Interviewer

So, teaching would be very much about community?

Pamela Morton

Very much. And I was really, really lucky.

Interviewer

So which community were you in for most of your career? You were at one school? Yes?

Pamela Morton

I did all these teaching practices, and things, and then you got one school, and I was with, luckily for me being in the West Ridings, the Director of Education was Sir Alec Clegg who was an unbelievable man. And I went to one school, which was absolutely hilarious. And it was a really good social cross-section of a school. So had all kinds of different homes from the children, and all kinds of different parents, and some really sad, and some really funny. And there was one, one mother forgot her name, she was one of these billowing ladies, I don’t know whether you see them much now, but sort of floating along in a variety of bits of old stuff. She could have been in an old house coat, or pillow slip type dress. So she was so funny and I had a whole lot of windows along, and she used to go along there “Hello!…” I said, “Oh there you are.” “Hello. I got a right one coming up for your here.” I said, “Have you really” said, “Here, what do you think?” I said, “What?”, “He can speak!”, “Can he really, Good Lord!” Well then another time she was rather surprising, and she said, “Here, I’ve got a strange one here for you.” So I said, “What’s that?” She said, He’s got webbed fingers!”

Interviewer

So these were…

Pamela Morton

Wasn’t she dappy! And she used to come in with a whole bunch of birth certificates, and give them to the Head, which wasn’t me. And she used to say, “Here, will you sort these out, I think I might have one or two for you this year.” So the Head used to sort out where she was going to get.

Interviewer

So she had a, she had a large number of children?

Pamela Morton

A large number of children. And the schools had a large number of pupils, like 47 in one class!

Interviewer

Okay.

 

Pamela Morton

Which was not…

Interviewer

So very different, when we are complaining that we’ve got 30 in a class today. Okay, So, then at some stage you find yourself in York. Is that right?

Pamela Morton

Yes. That’s when I got to be a Head. I did quite well.

Interviewer

You were sort of young, and precocious, when you became Head?

Pamela Morton

Yes, I wasn’t…they didn’t… several of the parents, grumbling around. “It’s not what I used to call a Head” says one of them, “look at that, for goodness sake.” And I was in canary yellow with black patent knee boots.

Pamela Morton

And apparently they didn’t have the idea that, was what their image of a Head Teacher was.

Interviewer

So I have an image of this school being in the middle of  quite a close community, or village, even though it is quite close to York.

Pamela Morton

A tiny village. It was, that had been expanded by a modern building very, very quickly. So the number of children at the school had gone from 75, I think when they, took on all the scores it was to be about 300 or 400 altogether. And it grew very quickly because the buildings went up very quickly. And it was very, very interesting. And because it was all modern, and there were lots of ideas going along, and I had  so much encouragement from the Education Department, we got some really interesting experiences. We used to get people, because the children with these big classes, we found the best way was to have all the ages mixed up together. Which required dedicated teachers, and the complicated stuff they had to do. But the children would know exactly what they were able to choose to do. And they knew that their choices were to complete their, I think they used to have a little tray gathering stuff together. And if it was in say blue books, or in a blue tin, everything that was blue would be at the stage that they were. So then the teachers were involved in getting a profile of these children from day to day. It was, it was hard work, but it really was fantastic.

Interviewer

And alongside that, was there a lot of community activity? Were there fundraising, and all that sort of thing?

 

Pamela Morton

Gosh, I have forgotten. That was the day of jumble sales, used to have jumble sales. What a nightmare. When we really got going with those, they were huge, and they were so incredibly profitable. I remember, I mean a thousand pounds then was a lot of money. And remember being amazed when we got a thousand pounds from the jumble sale.

Interviewer

And what sort of stuff would that be spent on in schools in those days?

Pamela Morton

Well we would spend it  on all sorts of extras, well not extra.  There was a beginning of computers. Very expensive items. Yes. That would complement what the standard ration was, so to speak, was.

Interviewer

Yes.

Pamela Morton

Absolutely. And it, and it was incredible  the amount of free hand that we had.

Volunteering at York Minster

Interviewer

Now in my mind, you also did other volunteering alongside that. Things like singing in the Minster choir, and things like that. Is that fair?

Pamela Morton

Well, I did do a lot to do with the Minster. Yes. By that time my Mother was living down by the Minster, and I was still living up in Micklegate. And yes, we used to do a lot in the Minster. So a lot of it was voluntary, but some of it was not. Choosing how to best run the Minster Gift Shop.

Interviewer

Oh, okay.

Pamela Morton

And finding out Staff there, which were salaried. And parties of people, taking them around, different aspects. And we used to have schools in there a lot, as well, and lots of children. And they used to be coming with their funny little tape measures, and things, measuring, trying to measure the, the pillars and doing their pictures of them. And it was a lot of flower arrangements, speakers, and all kinds of stuff. It was very, very interesting. But it was cliquey. . . It was cliquey. It, it’s all right. If you were in the clique.

Volunteering on retirement

Interviewer

It often is, in volunteering, I have to say. So then keeping the story moving forwards, I think in sort of your mid to late fifties Ill health struck you again, and you decided to finish your working as a teacher, Is that right?

Pamela Morton

Yes. Well, it was all similar time. I mean, I’d always thought that I’d hang on until last gasp. Instead, of which the minute I got to be able to retire, I was off like a shot because by that time I was, I, I was not prepared to put before the parents, and their children, plans, and methods, and manners of work, that I didn’t consider were helpful.

Interviewer

So you retired?

Pamela Morton

So I retired…

Interviewer

And they, there you are, young, energetic. So what did you decide to do with your retirement apart from a few trips abroad?

Volunteering with the Friends at York Hospital

Pamela Morton

What I decided to do with retirement was, I had begun to get some kind of minimal idea of what was going on at the hospital, And what was going on at that hospital was quite interesting, but it was minimal, and so I think there were 23, what was it? 13? Some very small number of volunteers. That did things like carting around the wards with newspapers, coffee, for people that were waiting in the ordinary waiting room. Oh. And then yet he did get out to be a bit expanding, providing accommodation in the newly open cancer unit. And these girls were so frightened, well they weren’t all girls in this. And suddenly, and I remember I wanted and got there, waiting room was more like a sitting room, and we had tea served to them properly in china cups and saucers, plates with the cakes. Where would you get the cakes? You’d have Mrs So-and-so making cakes for you. Actually one of the ladies that used to make cakes for me, it was next door to me now, Maureen. She used to make cakes. It was very interesting. And of course then we, that branched out that we were raising funds specifically for the cancer unit. And then that went independent and became York Against Cancer, which is now massive. Absolutely massive.

Interviewer

So we’re talking about the, the Hospital League of Friends, and your involvement, particularly with the Cancer Unit, and getting that set up, but just as in education where your skills were recognised very rapidly. I had sensed that you probably found yourself onto the committee quite rapidly at the hospital?

Pamela Morton

As well. Yes, I did. And it was very interesting. And it was me, who’s aim was to be, not noticeable, but extremely well-organised behind the scenes. And eventually I managed to get them to give us a little office, which is now a broom cupboard, which was quite adequate. And we got going with volunteering and we were engaged with getting volunteers and fundamentally raising funds. So we would give an event, arrange fundraising efforts, at the villages around and about York, and bring it all in. And we sponsored the Friends as their number grew. The very first thing that we bought were a couple of wheelchairs, which were easier to move. And then I remember, I can’t remember when it was, but it was really unbelievable that we actually bought wheelchairs for people who were huge, and beds, especially reinforced.

Interviewer

So larger sized?

Pamela Morton

Yes. And always raising money for stuff like that. And, and always it was very business like, and the formalities behind it, the record keeping was very, very careful. And I had like a log book and, this tiny little office and they used to clock into the office that they’d arrived, which they had. We had to do that anyway, because then for people who were on the premises, and we kept this log and when they’d done their stint, they’d always fill the log in, and then it was ready to hand over to whoever it was, and they would sign in and say what they’d done. And it doesn’t sound as if that was valuable, but it was very valuable, very, very valuable. And when a certain person involved herself with it, and decided that she wasn’t going to do this, and she wasn’t going to do that…

Interviewer

So interestingly, that was in an era when volunteers, I think probably had a lower profile than perhaps we are seeing today, when suddenly with the pandemic, and all of these people saying they want to volunteer, people are trying to work out how to use volunteers.

Pamela Morton

Yes I agree. And they were, and now it’s a lot better. Again, it’s gone right through it. They ruined it. It was, it was working, but it wasn’t working in the way it should.

Interviewer

Well, there was an era when the NHS, particularly in my view, saw itself as being the domain of paid staff, and not necessarily the community.

Pamela Morton

Yes.

Interviewer

So at that, the era we are talking about, I have a sense that the, the being on the Committee of the League of Friends, or even volunteering for the League of Friends, was something to aspire to. It was a, an important social network.

Pamela Morton

Very important. Very important. And we used to invite others to hospitals, community Friends would come, we’d have a day out there, and we’d have all special things to speak, speak, showing, raising, and go to start. Well, and it was fascinating and we brought people, invited people in, and then of course they invited us back. And so that again was really interesting, because the kind of undertaking that they would, I mean they were raising thousands of pounds for specific things. And then it got so popular, with the general social setup of hospitals, that they all had them anyway. And we started then going on visits around and about.  and then, and then we were increasingly, increasingly connected with, with, with what used to be to call National Association Hospital and Community Friends.

Volunteering with Attend

Interviewer

Absolutely. So you found yourself more involved in that and they, again, recognise your skills and you got called onto the National Board?

Pamela Morton

Oh, I was so excited. That’s the best.

Interviewer

Almost I was going to say through a change in circumstance, you found yourself Chairman of the national body.

Pamela Morton

I was so thrilled. Best thing that ever happened.

Interviewer

And do you have any particular memories that you really enjoy about being part of the national board?

Pamela Morton

Yes. Well, yes. I loved going to all the different hospitals, and meeting all the different people, and what they were doing, and how they were doing it. And in various innovations. It was just very, very stimulating. I loved it.

Interviewer

Well, I can remember actually traveling with you. We were in Scotland at one extreme, and we were down as far as the tip of Cornwall, at the other extreme.

Pamela Morton

Oh yes.

 

Interviewer

We…

Pamela Morton

Oh my goodness me. That Cornwall trip was a bit comical.

Interviewer

Well, I always remember the wrong stories, not the right stories. So I have this image, which I think we can include as part of this, where we had been at, at a very, very long day. And we decided to entertain some of the Cornwall people at a dinner. And we were in a hotel in Exeter at that point. And you’d gone back to your room, and you came back to the table and you were at a rather large chair at the head of the table. And it was a little low. And you, were not a particularly short lady, but you, you sort of, you were too low. So the waitress rather elegantly suggested that she would go and find you a cushion. And she came back with the cushion. She was only a poor little young thing. And it was a very big cushion. And she said, Oh, I think that’s big enough. And can you remember your response?

Pamela Morton

Yes. “A big cushion for a big bottom!”

Interviewer

Exactly. And she looked totally mortified that, that you might have thought she was inferring your bottom was large. But there was something to me about the fact that you kept a sense of humour throughout that whole thing, which made it work with local groups.

Pamela Morton

Oh, it was fantastic.

Interviewer

Now hopefully you can remember, but I can remember that one of the events you went to without me, and in fact I’ve never been to, is the Shropshire County Association lunch. So can you tell us a little bit about what that event was like?

Pamela Morton

Oh, it was, what was her name?

Interviewer

June Whittaker.

Pamela Morton

It was so funny. This lady lived in a very, well, it was, it had been, a very beautiful country house, and it was still a country house, and she was still living in it. And there was this massive great central room with the doors. And there was a big store along in front of the door, and her husband was dishing out bottles, and drinks, for everyone to have, not a lie. And suddenly she took a look at this,  and  she called down the hall to him, “I say there Woolston! Steady on with the bottles.” She said, “after the last one we were tiddly for a fortnight, drinking up the bits.”

Interviewer

So June opened up her house for a lunch. It was a bring and share lunch?

Pamela Morton

Yes. It was a bring and share lunch. And it was so massive, this place,  huge, huge furniture, tables of wonderful food, glowing with life. And it was the big event.

Interviewer

And roughly how many volunteers would you say were attending an event like that?

Pamela Morton

Oh, a couple of hundred.

Interviewer

And they would come from all across the Friends groups in Shropshire, an event like that. Yes. So there was a real sense of community amongst those groups?

Pamela Morton

Oh yes. And they loved it.

Interviewer

Excellent. So, there you are, and you do all of this marvelous volunteering. And in 2010 her Majesty decides to give you an OBE for your services to volunteering?

Pamela Morton

When it came to the letter box, I was going through the door with a friend of mine and I said, “Oh no, another blooming bill, I expect” I opened it, and it said this about the OBE, and I was so overcome, I had to take a grip on the refrigerator. I was astounded, and astonished

Interviewer

And…

Pamela Morton

Thrilled to death!

Interviewer

And so you went to Buckingham Palace to receive it?

 

Pamela Morton

We went to Buckingham Palace, got quite familiar with Buckingham Palace. We went one time I remember, and the plane trees were particularly full of pollen and everybody, including you, and me were absolutely streaming with…Do you remember that?

Interviewer

Yes, I do. I remember another time when we were there, and it was absolutely chucking with rain, and we were in the back garden!

Pamela Morton

Oh, that was a scandal.

Interviewer

There was lots…

Pamela Morton

And I said that if they’d only given us a few days, a few hours warning, we’re could have arranged something for them to keep the wet out, It was unbelievable that wasn’t it.

Interviewer

It made it to the national papers. It was the amount of rain we had.

Pamela Morton

Never seen rain like it.  And people with these hundreds pounds worth of shoes sunk in the mud were, Oh dear me, the only thing was, you did get this wonderful impression of the English still stoically going on. Still sat around the tables, and having afternoon tea, and a chat.

Interviewer

I must admit it could have been the setting for a carry on film.

Pamela Morton

Oh, it was absolutely hysterical, wasn’t it?

 

Recognised with a national honour for volunteering

Interviewer

It was. It was great fun. So there you are, you go to Buckingham Palace to get your OBE, it’s awarded to you by which Royal?

Pamela Morton

Princess Anne.

Interviewer

Princess Anne. And do you remember anything about that conversation with her?

 

Pamela Morton

As she was turning, what was it? I think it was she, Oh! I know she was turning to pick up the medal, they offered them, obviously came in right order. She said, “Tell me Miss Morton, do you still keep up with the knitting?” “What?” I said, “How do you know that I knit?” “You’d be surprised.” She said, “We know all sorts of things”

Interviewer

And interestingly we…

Pamela Morton

Lovely Woman!

Interviewer

We’ve come right full circle because there you were at 16 organising the community to knit blankets, and there you are, 70 odd years later, getting an OBE and the Princess Royal is mentioning your knitting. It’s obviously been a common theme throughout the whole of your career.

Pamela Morton

I knitted a set of golf club covers once, for Prince Andrew.

Interviewer

You certainly did. They were a gift. I think. I can’t remember what it was for. He’d come to something. It might have been on our 60th anniversary. So when you were thinking about us coming to talk to you today, is there anything that you haven’t had the chance to tell us that you would like to tell us?

Pamela Morton

I can’t really put in words how much it meant to me to me. The family were always worried, when I was going to be leaving teaching, what an earth was I going to do. I was delighted to skip straight into this, and it was much, much worse, much worse, retiring from the Friends, from Attend, than it was giving up teaching. I would say it was. And I mean, I was nuts about the teaching. There was nuts about, about the Friends.

Interviewer

But I have to say we are over 10 years now since you retired as Chairman. But I feel like you’ve not been forgotten. You haven’t been retired. You are still part of the family?

Pamela Morton

That’s definitely family.  Very, very, very important amount, major part of my life. You are, and you are not the organisation, and the family, and this family, that I have here with me now. Very dear to me.

Interviewer

Thank you ever so much.

 

About this story

Recorded on: 23 July 2025
Role:
Setting: Hospital
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Hospital:
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Related

Friends of York Hospitals

The Friends of York Hospitals works closely with the York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Organisation