‘Lost’ film revival is reel highlight of nurses’ reunion
ANURSE has spoken of her amazement after 40-yearold footage emerged of her and her colleagues larking about at a Rochdale hospital.
Footage from Rochdale’s Birch Hill Hospital was discovered in a cupboard in Canada decades after it was taken.
The short reel of film was created as a bit of fun in the mid-70s by a group of student nurses who were training at the nowclosed hospital’s nursing school.
But soon after the film was made, the nurses went their separate ways onto the wards and the film was forgotten about.
Then four decades later, the delightful vintage footage resurfaced during a reunion in Canada.
Ginny Newman. 59, from Rochdale, was one of the nurses who travelled to the country for a catch up with her old friends ‘the nurseketeers’.
She says it was a lovely surprise to see herself on the big screen.
“I’d forgotten all about it,” she said.
“It was just a bit of fun, we came up with the idea and decided what was going to happen and we just did it.
The short film tells the story of a team of nurses who find some people collapsed in the moors.
In just three-minutes, you see the nurses coming to their rescue, treating them, then transporting them to hospital on a stretcher.
Ginny said that seeing the old footage reawakened many memories for her and her old pals, adding: “After we all went our separate ways, the film ended up in the back of a cupboard in Canada, but just before our visit it was found and put on to a memory stick so we could all have a copy.
“It really was lovely to see it, and remember everyone. Although the four of us kept in touch, there were some that we never saw again, or who have since passed away.
“At the time it was quite prestigious to come over to England to train, and we had nurses training with us from all over the world.
“Things were a lot different then, it wasn’t like today when you go to university, our nursing school was in the grounds of the hospital.
“We studied there for a few months and then went onto the wards, everyone went their separate ways at that point, depending on what area of nursing you worked in.”
Mum-of-three Ginny continued to work as a nurse in Rochdale for 30 years. She now runs an adult dance school, Dance For Fun, with her husband Alan, 61.
Birch Hill Hospital, a former Victorian workhouse, closed its doors in 2013 with its remaining services transferred to Rochdale Infirmary.
The site has now been transformed into housing and apartments, although the historic building’s clocktower and facade has been retained. ●●Former Birch Hill Hospital student nurses Kath Pickston, Ginny Newman, Sue Clegg and Jean Romanelli. Ginny was amazed to see the 40-year-old footage