Redhill, East Surrey Hospital, The Porter's Lodge 1908

Photo ref: 59627

I remember working in Redhill General as a porter under Mr Eddie Chillman. I remember the elderly patients who came in for chest illness, and had to be wheeled through the length of the hospital, and then having to lift them up or down stairs to their respective wards After a while looking through the glass windows of the operating theatres Sister Bates suggested that I should apply to be a theatre ...see more

I was born in 1952 at the hospital and my dad, John Chisnall, was an ambulance driver at the time and was well known to the staff; being an ex guardsman of 6ft 5 inches tall he was hard to miss. He was also at the Smallfield site where he drove a lovely Daimler ambulance; his partner was Bob Jay. Unfortunatley he had a very bad accident while cleaning an ambulance, when the pair of steps he was using ...see more

This picture named Redhill Hospital 1908 is in fact the porter's lodge at the main entrance. When I nursed there in the 1970s we all called it "Rose Cottage" as apart from housing the switchboard and the porter's lodge it also housed the Pathology lab and the mortuary! Rose Cottage is a fairly often used term for a mortuary in a lot of hospitals. So if you hear a nurse or doctor say "They will soon be going to Rose ...see more

I too trained at RHG from 1963-1966 and I don't think any training these days could surpass the excellent training I received there. It was hard work but fun and I learned a lot and met some lovely people along the way. I ended up as a sister on ward 20 at Smallfield hospital and left in 1968 to go to live in Italy for a year - where I met my husband to be whilst on holiday. Fate has now brought me back ...see more