HYDE CHESHIRE

Harry Rutherford's
Festival of Britain Mural




Friday 22 April 2011

Memories Of Hyde Hospital

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After showing the Old Lodge on Mottram Old Road ,Stephen contacted us about the time he worked at Hyde Hospital in the 1970s and would we like to hear how he spent his working day. So ,with the help of some photo's from the hospitals past sent to us by Paul Taylor, I will turn the post over to Steve.....

Seeing the pictures of the Old Lodge at Hyde Hospital has brought back some happy memories and I would like to share a few with you .
I started work at Hyde hospital in 1977 as a hospital porter.
The buildings consisted of THE LODGE , THE ADMINISTRATION BLOCK & KITCHEN & NURSES HOME , 4 WARDS , THE PORTERS ROOM , THE OLD LAUNDRY BLOCK AND  THE MORTUARY.
Some of the staff were
MR PRITCHARD HEAD MATRON  he lived in the lodge
WARD 1 SISTER HUGHES
WARD 2 SISTER MURPHY
WARD 3 SISTER BEELEY
WARD 4 SISTER MORGAN
HEAD CHEF MIKE PERRIN
ADMIN MANAGER SUSAN GREAVES
OTHER PORTER JOHN GREEN

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A typical day for me was at 6 am go to the kitchen to peel the spuds in the potato machine.then when the breakfasts  were ready take them to each ward from the main kitchen .After breakfast the pots had to be returned to the kitchen.
Other jobs throughout the day were to take clean linen and stores to the wards and collect the dirty linen and take it to the old laundry block for collection to go to Ashton laundry.
All these deliveries to the seperate wards had to be made with a 2 wheeled flat bed hand truck and in winter it was very hard work.
The worst ward was ward 4 this had a very steep ramp at the front and you had to take a run up to the ramp to make sure you got all the contents of the truck to the top intact ha ha .
We finished work at 6 30 in the evenings and worked alternate weekends, there were no night porters.
If someone died in the night that would be your first job the next morning to remove the body and put in the fridge in the  mortuary at the bottom of the hospital grounds.
Later on just before I left to go and work for Tameside council in Hyde as a gardener they bought an electric milk float to deliver supplies to the wards.
John Green who was the other porter used to be the gardener at the hospital before being a porter and he used to do paintings .He did some fantastic paintings of the hospital grounds.
I only worked for 2 years at Hyde hospital but it was a really nice place to work and all the staff were great to get on with .


Thanks for reading my memories
STEPHEN HILL.

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Excellent Stephen, I hope some one reads this and recalls you working there. If anyone would like to something like this fell free to get in touch with us.

7 comments:

Hydonian said...

Fabulous account there, Steve!
I remember going into Hyde Hospital a few times with my best friend whilst I waited her Mum to finish work - It always loooked spotless!

I wonder what happened to the paintings that were done by John Green?

niki said...

what date are there photos from? my son is doing a project about how Hyde has changed these would be useful as we live near the hospital and have seen it change over 14yrs and how part of it is now to become houses it would be nice to have a date for photos to do time line type of thing or any other info you think would be useful thanks niki

Tom said...

Hi Niki
I think your son will find this link of interest and it should mentions the dates as well..

http://www.tameside.gov.uk/history/archive.php3

If there's anything we can help with we will.. and we can be contacted at hydonian@gmail.com

John Gregory said...

I was in the Hyde hospital with suspected diphtheria in 1946 and amazingly I can very vaguely remember being there, I was 18 months old at the time and just remember the big beds and the nurses picking me up, ah well it is true.

Tom said...

Hi John
I have memories from as far back as that myself... a bit blurred though now.. :O)

Unknown said...

My Grandma was Sister Beeley, if anyone has any photos could you please let me know? I think she was there for about 20 years. X Nicola

'Saskia' said...

http://www.tameside.gov.uk/history/archive.php3 Type in Hyde hospital and pictures of nurses do come up the further you scroll X