Psychiatric staff recall wartime takeover
STAFF from Chester's former psychiatric hospital have been invited to a reunion.
Stan Murphy, who worked as a mental health nurse for 49 years, has organised the reunion for all former staff at the Deva Hospital.
He took up nursing at the outbreak of the Second World War and began work as an auxiliary in June 1940 at nearby Upton Emergency Hospital, near Chester.
He said: "Part of the annexe of Deva Hospital, Chester was taken over by the military on the outbreak of war. "When we went there it was empty, everything was spotless and all the beds just waiting.
"We had to go through the main building to get to the pathology lab, pharmacy, and canteen, meeting mental patients, which made me a little bit scared because I was not used to them at that time.
"When the badly wounded military patients arrived from Dunkirk in the summer of 1940 it was so different.
"It was like a station, it was just crammed, and most of them went to theatre. We really had a 'baptism of fire' when we saw the gruesome sights, but just had to get on with the work without flinching. There were two theatres, one for operating and the other for plastering limbs.
"I was told to give an enema to one man; they all had to have enemas before theatre in those days.
"I had never undressed anyone never mind give an enema; I was shaking and upset the wretched thing in the bed.
"I was embarrassed, I was only 19 and led a rather sheltered life, but the poor man was too ill to care if a donkey had attended to him.
"When he had gone to theatre, I had to take the mattress off quick and change it with one from a side ward while it dried. After that I was very blasé.
"We were responsible for 56 beds. We nursed military and naval casualties, British, Czech, and Poles.
"Convalescents wore bright blue serge suits, white shirts, and red ties, and plimsolls so as not to damage the wooden floors of the hospital.
"The staffs were severe at times. Military personnel measured the spaces between each bed with a measuring stick.
"Later on when the raids were bad in Southampton, and over London, and Liverpool, we had civilian patients, men, women, and children, some as young as five and six on the wards.
"The most upsetting part for me was when we knew they weren't going to get better. There were two small girls, heart patients, and there was no real treatment. It was heartbreaking to think that they wouldn't improve at all."
The staff reunion is on Friday, April 18 from noon-2pm in Upton Royal British Legion Club. Call 01244 340753 for details.
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I worked at Mostyn and trained as an SEN I started in 1972 as a Nursing Auxilliay my daughter Sarah was in the nursery at Mostyn and later became a SEN. I left and went on the District as a Nursing Auxilliary. I remember Sister Murrey, Sister Sutton, Sister Orm, I trained with Chris Lee (Strong). My maiden name was Jennifer Wilde.
I left the UK for Australia in 1977 with my husband Ken Webster-Hancock. I would like to hear from nurses and am thinking about attend the reunion in April 1911. I am in contact with Frederick Davies who has a B&B in Hoole Road called Lavender Lodge where I stayed this summer July 2010.
Would love to hear from you all.