‘Nursing is a vocation. You do it for the love’
front to book a room at a maternity home, but then my mother had me on July 5 – the same day the NHS launched.
“This meant they were reimbursed for the maternity bed they had booked. My dad used to joke I was the baby they had for free. I can’t say exactly why I wanted to be a nurse. It was just something I knew I would always do.
“I started as a cadet nurse in 1965 when I was 17. It was a lot a fun but you really were the lowest of the low.
“You spent most of your times running errands for other people. By the time I got to my general nurse training in 1966 I had established myself.
“Working in a hospital when you’re so young did make you grow up. Being put in a hospital in Salford in the 1960s was tough. It was still a very deprived area at the time.
“I’m still very proud of the NHS. Don’t get me wrong, I am critical of it too. I think the greatest legacy of the NHS is the way it has helped train nurses and doctors from all over the world.
“If you look at the photo of me on my first day of midwifery I am alongside girls from Pakistan, China, Jamaica, Australia and New Zealand.
“I always enjoyed that aspect of the job.
“One of the biggest strengths of the NHS is having people of many nationalities coming here to train and then taking those skills back to developing countries.
“People from different countries still play a huge role in the service now. That’s why I get angry when the government tries to restrict their visas.”
Lindy ended her career working as the Designated Nurse for Safeguarding in Rochdale and now leads a very busy life caravanning, gardening and looking after her grandchildren.
She was due to meet staff at The Royal Oldham Hospital and the first baby born on the NHS’s 70th birthday as part of the celebrations.
Jannett Creese was one of thousands who arrived in the UK from the Caribbean, in the post-war years, to help rebuild Britain.
Like many members of the Windrush generation Jannett, now 79, trained and worked for the NHS.
There was a big recruitment drive all over the Caribbean, highlighting the opportunities that existed in England and thousands took the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come.
Jannett, who is now retired and lives in Stockport, said times were tough for a young black nurse a long way from home.
She worked at Stepping Hill Hospital for 13 years and at Withington Hospital for 11 years.
“I was born in St Vincent and the Grenadines and from the age of 10 I wanted to be a nurse,” says Jannett. “When I was 20 I applied to be a nurse in Britain and my parents paid for my fare. I started at St Leonard’s Hospital in London where I did my training.
“Eventually I moved up to Birmingham with my husband. It was the first time I had lived outside of nurses accommodation and I was shocked by the appalling living conditions here.
“I had been taught by Scottish and English teachers in St Vincent. They painted a beautiful picture of England. Maybe it had been beautiful for them, but the England I saw was very poor.
“People were still very racist, too. When I started my nurse training that was when I was really exposed to it.
“I remember I was being shown how to give a patient a bed bath and they said: ‘Get your black hands off me.’
“It was common and you just had to toughen up. I was there for a long time. When I think about what the NHS means to me, I see it as an institution where I grew up. It built me up as a person and showed me how to relate to other people.”
Mary Moore has been a nurse for 39 years and is now chief nurse at Trafford Clinical Commissioning Group.
She has worked at various hospitals around the country as a theatre and anaesthetics nurse.
Mary, 57, who now lives near Preston, looks back at when this photograph was taken in 1989.
“I remember having this photograph (right) taken with my baby daughter Nicola.
“I had just returned home from a night shift in theatre to this bouncy baby who was wide awake.
“I always used to love coming home to her after a long shift. My husband would then go to work and Nicola would go to the childminders while I slept.
“You didn’t get very much maternity leave then. It was tricky at times but I loved my job as a nurse and went on to have two more children. We managed.
“I always knew I wanted to be a nurse from when I was a child. My mum dressed me up in a little nurse’s uniform when I was young and I think it planted a seed.
“I just always wanted to look after people, even if it was putting a plaster on.
“Nursing is a vocation. You certainly don’t do it for the money, you do it for the love of it.”