Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
We’ve nurse our friendsh for 50 years
Two women who have been pals since training together as nurses are celebrating five decades of friendship as the NHS turns 70. Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu and Sue Rees, who both turned 71 recently, qualified in 1968.
Before their birthdays and of the health service’s anniversary tomorrow, Dame Elizabeth posted a photo of the pair standing proudly side by side after completing their training, and one of the pals 50 years on.
The images have gone viral as tens of thousands of people “like” their heartwarming story.
Dame Elizabeth tweeted: “Sue and I qualified together as nurses 50 years ago at Paddington General Hospital and we’re still best friends.
“I’m just one day older than her and we’ll soon be celebrating our 71st birthdays! #NHS70.”
She adds of Sue: “We have the same sense of humour. We are really good friends, she’s wonderful. We’ve been able to support each other and we know each other’s children, even though we live in different parts of the country. It’s fantastic.”
The pair met for the first time in 1965 when they were 18 and bonded over crosswords as they began training at the former Paddington General Hospital in North West London, which is no longer standing.
Dame Elizabeth says: “We hit it off, we’ve got the same zany sense of humour and we love the NHS. I was very shy. We had to live in the nurses’ quarters,, but it helped someone like me with its sense of camaraderie.
“It was easy to make friends as there were no more than 12 of us that studied together. Everything was provided for us. We were part of the workforce; there were no fees to train and we had a small wage.”
Sue says of her friend: “We definitely clicked in terms of our sense of humour, intellect and curiosity. And we’re both socialists.”
Dame Elizabeth, of Ealing, West London, worked as a staff nurse for six months after qualifying. She went on to become a specialist sickle cell nurse and helped set up the country’s first Sickle Cell & Thalassaemia Centre.
The mum of one eventually became a professor of nursing at the University of West London and in 2001 received a CBE for