Yorkshire nurses recall fond memories of life in old nurses' home at Leeds General Infirmary

“Life felt safe and we were full of anticipation and expectation for the future.” Edwina Gerry embarked on her Leeds nursing career in 1970 with her hopes and aspirations mapped out.

For many young women leaving home to begin nurse training it was a daunting prospect moving to a strange place with people you didn’t know.

It was the rule at the time that nurses lived in the nurses’ home for the first two years of their training which, for many, meant leaving behind home comforts and heading off to big city life in Leeds.

“I’m sure our parents were pleased that there was a lot of care and support for us,” says 69-year-old Edwina of Cookridge, Leeds. “Nobody in those days had the experience of a gap year. We were straight from school and our parental homes and into nursing.”

Yet Edwina says there was lots of support and always someone to talk to and share what might have been a difficult day on the ward.

Nurses’ homes were first introduced in England to provide secure on-site accommodation, mainly to attract more nurses to the profession and to separate employees from patients with infectious diseases.

The original nurses’ home at Leeds General Infirmary was built in 1879 at a cost of £5,000 to meet the rising numbers of nurses working there and has been extended many times over the years.

The current unoccupied building was opened on 2 October 1937 by the Princess Royal and provided accommodation for up to 250 nurses. It last functioned as a nurses’ home about 15 years ago before being used as offices and then finally closed.

As it makes way for the exciting development of new adults and children’s hospitals on the Leeds General Infirmary site, the old building has rekindled fond memories from many of those who lived there when taking their first steps as trainee nurses.

Nurses like Edwina Gerry remember having to share telephones in the nurses’ home foyer with a blackboard to chalk messages on – and using the window ledge outside their rooms as a refrigerator and hoping their milk or bread didn’t fall on unsuspecting passers by below.

Edwina went on to achieve the accolade of the Eva Moynihan Gold Medal for reaching high standards in nursing for which she is undoubtedly proud.

Hull girl Linda Dakin (nee Brown) was just 18 when she left East Yorkshire to start her nursing career – 50 years ago this year. “It was my first introduction to Leeds, LGI and the Nurses Home. So goodbye to my family - and goodbye to being a ‘teenybopper’,” she says.

Her teenybopper days weren’t quite over as “discos” were sometimes held in the large TV room at the nurses’ home. Linda has good cause to remember one event - on Thursday 26th February 1970 to be precise – when she met John, her husband of 47 years.

There were strict rules in place when it came to boyfriends with a “beau’s parlour” on the ground floor for partners to meet, but with a stipulation that the doors must be kept open at all times.

“John would meet me at the bottom of the stairs in the entrance hall and bring me back before 10:30pm,” Linda recalls. “If we were late I had to sit in the casualty department and wait for the night warden to let me in.”

She qualified in 1973 with the couple marrying and moving to Wakefield. She later trained as a health visitor at the University of Leeds, and continued health visiting until 1978 when she left to have her family - two daughters, a son and eight grandchildren.

Her eldest daughter Lucy followed in her mother’s footsteps, starting her nurse training when the rule of having to live in the nurses’ home had long gone. “There’s an enormous responsibility on you at such a young age,” says Lucy who is a cardiac research nurse at the LGI. “Unlike mum I had the luxury of still being able to live at home.”

Linda says it was both a scary and exciting time seeing Lucy choose a career in nursing as “training had changed so much”. “But it was always wonderful to listen to her experiences and watch her grow in confidence.”

Male nurses were rare at the LGI in the 1970s and had to live in a building at the old women’s hospital in Woodbine Place. Chris Hough, from Farsley, trained there from 1971-74 and recalls only being allowed into the recreational hall and the upstairs lounge at the nurses’ home.

“We were excluded from gynaecology lessons - and were never allowed to work on female wards as it was not the done thing at the time,” says Chris, now 68 and retired.

Jeanne Cooper began her training in Leeds in 1947, a year before the NHS came into being, and remembers the shock of moving to the city from her home in Filey.

Rationing was still in place at the time, and Jeanne recalls being given sugar in a glass jar which wouldn’t stretch to both porridge and tea – so she gave up sugar in her brew.

“It was all very formal and you were not allowed to call each other by your first name on the wards – and you rarely mixed with other nursing “sets”, although we were all friendly with each other,” says Jeanne, now 90 and living in Leeds.

She went on to become a staff nurse and later a sister in medical outpatients. “If you wanted to live outside from your third year you had to get matron’s permission as she was like a stand-in mother,” she recalls.

It was testimony to the care and support that the matrons gave the young nurses throughout their time in the nurses’ home. Sandy Dalby had a quite different kind of request for matron during her time in the nurses’ home between 1962-64 – asking permission to get engaged to her future husband Michael.

“I got engaged in my third year, and because I hadn’t finished my training Michael had to get matron’s approval to assure her I would complete the course,” she says. “It was like having a second opinion after being given my parents blessings.”

Michael duly gave his word that his future wife would complete her training, and the couple were married in October 1965 – with Sandy qualifying as a nurse in 1966.

She recalls many adventures including sleeping on the roof in the summer when it was too hot – and being awoken on the hour by the chimes of the Leeds Town Hall clock.

“It was our home from home, and out of the 40 nurses that started nursing with me I still meet up with at least seven of them and we regularly communicate,” says Sandy who, after a brief stint as an agency nurse, retired to Ilkley in 2004.

The new hospitals will provide state-of-the-art health care for generations to come, but the memories of those who lived in the old nurses’ home will never fade away.

For more memories of the former nurses, visit www.leedsth.nhs.uk/old-nurses-home