Happy Days in Heswall (RLCH)
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Heswall, Childrens Hospital c1965
Ref: H276144
Year: 1969
Happy Days in Heswall (RLCH)
I guess I was on the same bus as Gina and her life long friends who I also remember. The Liverpool girls would meet up on a Sunday night to catch the ferry to Birkenhead and the bus to Heswall. If the girls from the Isle of Man and Ireland had been home for a weekend we met them too. Once back at Heswall we met up with the Welsh girls returning mainly from the North of Wales. We usually tried to escape for a late night out but would get caught by the Rotweiller, AKA 'Annie'. Now she was one seriously scary lady. Put one foot wrong and we'd be outside Mia Williams (matron) office 1st thing Monday.
We worked our way through all the wards before commencing training with the United Liverpool Group of Hospitals. If I remember correctly, there being ten hospitals and only Clatterbridge is still up and running today. My favourite ward being Lady Jones run by Sister Clarke. I can still visualise all the kids in their cots and remeber most of their names and all the staff who worked on the ward.
The fabulous Welsh Hills we overlooked from the hospital and feeling devastated when I returned to Liverpool many years later to find Tesco in my old home away from home.
Gina and I are still about at Alder Hey. I'm one of the few nurses left who worked in the operating department at Myrtle St. once qualifying.
Val Connell-Mir.
Shared on 08 May 2008
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Year: Unknown
RE: Happy Days in Heswall (RLCH)
I was so glad I found this memory, my sister Elaine was in Lady Jones Ward until she died aged 16 in August 1975. I would visit often. I was 12. Our parents would travel from Speke every day. Elaine was transfered to Heswall from Walton, she was in a RTA in May 1974 and was in a coma for 16 months. I remember all the young children, and their musical toys, there was a little girl I think she was blind and when she heard footsteps she would shout 'Hiya'. The only visitors to that ward I recall was my family, then another girl about 11 was brought in, her name was Tracy, and she screamed a lot. I saw her family a couple of times, but the children in the ward seemed to be forgotten, even an Asian girl who looked about 17 in a cot, she seemed violent to the staff. Around 1981 a nurse from the children's hospital in Liverpool told me that Lady Jones Ward was known as the no hope ward. I was so shocked and told my father, he was not aware of that at the time Elaine was there, he fought for her for 16 months, he and my mother never recovered.
Shared on 18 January 2009
