A TALE OF TWO HOSPITALS

I am trying to think of the expression for returning to old haunts out of curiosity rather than sentiment.

No doubt you are surprised to find me revisiting Hertford Hospital which threw me out so ignominiously back in 1975, narrowly escaping the incinerator.

The fact is that there are plans to celebrate 180 years of Hertford Hospital, so I might take an interest, and I might not.

As you see, my circumstances have certainly changed: similarly for the old hospital property.

Gone is the flat-roofed ward block over there together with the ‘new’ operating theatre. Instead it has all been developed into private housing, known as Florence Court.

Note the name.

The hospital facilities that remain here now occupy these magnificent spacious modern premises, seen behind me, which are on both the incinerator site and the Never-never.

It all makes me think about the fortunes of my old work place back before 1964 at Bishop’s Stortford, teaching nurses how to handle patients, decades before the days of plastic resuscitation mannequins.

You may know that my Victorian nightdress from working days is labelled Oxford Ward, which, local folk will say straight away, was not at Hertford. 

Actually it was at the ‘Herts and Essex’, serving Bishop’s Stortford. Haymeads General Hospital there was one of about six hospitals forming the Hertford County Group.

Similarly my wrist strap places me in Exeter Ward. The wards at the H & E were all named after cathedral cities.

So, surprise, surprise, I have been to have a look around there as well!

Seeing that we are all friends here, I will let you into a little secret.

Gordon’s idea was that we should go along one weekday, park unobtrusively amongst the masses, invest properly in a parking ticket (I have never felt the need to apply for a Blue Badge), unfold the wheelchair and proceed calmly up to the frontage, pose by the sign, click, and be gone again sharpish before any questions!

But I had a better idea.  I pointed out that it might be quieter to go at a weekend. 

So instead we jumped the gun and went immediately, being a Sunday. Dressed once more in my appropriate hospital night gown, we drove up amazed to find the place as dead as a Dodo, maybe deader!  Park right outside, and take all the time you want!

This is all new to me.

In my day, at the beginning of World War II, 1939, for the wounded they threw up a series of single-story wards (huts, if you like) on either side of a long straight corridor, and dignified them with those names of cathedral cities.

Re-named from Haymeads General to ‘Herts and Essex’ when the NHS took over in 1948, they were still standing when I left in the mid 1960’s.

Now the whole lot have gone. In their place is lots of 2004-6 housing alongside the road which was extended to reach the site for this new 2003 Community Hospital. 

As we looked around some wheelchairs materialised from the distance, residents being wheeled out for an airing by relatives. One party stopped for a chat, from which it seems that Oxford and Cambridge are still ward names, although obviously it is totally different from the premises that I used to work in.

Leisurely packing the car and setting off back home, it was exciting suddenly to discover before us that the oldest buildings were still standing.

So we had to stop, park again, and unpack the wheelchair once more.

Take a good look. Some places have got more than one name. This has got three, and more!

Those who enlarged it in the 1840’s to cover 20 parishes called it Haymeads Public Assistance Institute. The public called it The Workhouse.

At the turn of the century, the days of my nightdress, it became the geriatric hospital. Then goodness knows what the gas victims of World War 1 called it in 1914-8!

Now it is called ‘Nightingales’, matching ‘Florence Court’ at Hertford.

Again we had the place virtually to ourselves, although perhaps the folk in the new housing along the road behind us might have been looking out, watching and wondering.

I must admit to a wistful, excluded sort of feeling creeping over me.

No doubt a similar experience happens to lots of other people. Is it really a good idea to revisit memories?

Love from Gloria.

Ends