WITH all the stories about the National Health these days, and many people calling for the old-style Matron to be re-instated, a new book may be of interest to anyone who is working, or worked, in any capacity in hospitals over the years.
It is called "When Matron Ruled", by Peter Arden (Publisher Robert Hale, Price £19.99), who has studied the subject thoroughly before putting pen to paper (or fingers on the typewriter, or whatever he uses). He has painstakingly researched the working lives of matrons from the past; retired Matrons were interviewed and their stories and experiences recorded, not only as Matrons, but as student nurses themselves.
Among those he talked to were two Bolton nurses, Kathleen Cooper, former Assistant Matron at the old Fishpool Hospital (later Townleys, Bolton General, and now Royal Bolton), and Betty Connor, once a Matron in Stow-on-the-Wold, but who now lives in Little Lever, and who in 1989 wrote a book called A Pauper's Palace, the history of Fishpool Institution (1860-1948).
Carry on, Matron...
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