Billericay Hospital

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Are you or anyone you know in this photograph?

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Does it refer to St. Andrews Hospital?

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  • I was badly scalded in 1957, aged 15months, and spent approximately 3 months in Billericay burns unit, having skin grafts. Thank you to the staff that helped me.

    By Angela Brown (22/10/2023)
  • Have just found this fascinating page, and cannot believe it mentions Sister ‘Cinders’ who helped deliver me in 1958! My mother referred to her as Sister Sindler, I think. She never forgot her and always told the story of how when she was in floods of tears, Sister Sindler said ‘What’s the matter Mrs Du, don’t you like your baby?’ Apparently she called all the mothers ‘Mrs Du’! I’ve carried this on and often use it as a term of endearment to my daughters, the dog etc. Wonderful to find out more about her, thank you!

    By Sian Jennings (04/04/2022)
  • I was a 16 y.o. South Wales lad who spent a few months in Brooks Ward annexe with rheumatic fever late 1962. I remember Dr Attia and staff nurses Eagar and Elizabeth Sheridan. Great food – l still have one of the menus they used to issue. I have fond memories of friendly staff and excellent treatment/nursing. Smoking was permitted in the wards, but you had to be out of bed!

    By Michael Jeffreys (21/12/2020)
  • It may be Sister Cinders. She delivered me in 1959, presumably at the end of her career. My mother and I visited her regularly in 1960s and 70s, at her tiny wooden cottage where Norsey Road joined High Street. I remember she had a bird in a cage.

    She was a Latvian Jew from Riga who had fled the Nazis in early 1930s, coming to England. I don’t know if she had trained as a nurse in Latvia or when she got to England. Most of her family were murdered in the gas chambers.

    In her early years Latvia as part of the Russian empire, and she could remember life under the Tsars. In the early 1970s she had family living in the USSR. With the Cold War, communication with her family was difficult. However her nephew was a commercial pilot and when he flew to London he tried to visit his aunt when she could. So Sister Cinders learnt of life in the USSR. She told us that no matter how bad life was under Communism, for the ordinary person it was much, much worse under the tsar. That made a huge impact on me.

    She was often seen walking. She walked to Basildon and also Brentwood regularly. Often drivers would stop and offer this elderly lady a lift, but she would thank them politely and decline.

    An incredible lady who lived through the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and then as a Jew under Hitler before escaping to this country, and who still had through her relatives an understanding of life in Communist Russia at a time when Russians were rarely allowed to travel to the West.

    By Celia Crossley (29/03/2020)
  • I used to live in Perry Street, for 49 years!! I was a staff Nurse, in 1954-6. Left to produce 4 Daughters. returned in 1973, worked on OPD, then became Sister until retiring at end of 1990. With 13 grand children and now 4 Greats life is interesting!! We moved to Lancashire to restore a Barn, and now live next door to youngest daughter and family. 16 years here now. Large garden, chickens, goose, and 2 cats. Still in contact with several friends. Best wishes to everyone, love from Margaret.

    By Margaret (16/01/2020)
  • Does anyone have any photos from the late sixties early 70’s when we wore butterfly caps and starched aprons – the students wore lilac pin stripe uniforms, staff nurses light blue and sisters navy.

    By Anne Bender ( nee Stevenson) (11/04/2019)
  • I thought it was her, I and my brother used to deliver a Christmas card to her each year when we were around 10/11, our father was Dr Dan Cuthbert a GP in Western Road.

    By Alastair Cuthbert (03/04/2014)
  • That is a picture of sister Cinders, with whom I worked in the maternity block, (she was a midwife) during my nurse training.

    The photo would have been taken around 1939–41 as after that, the uniform was without the red cross and headgear was different too, with the introduction of the ”butterfly cap”.

     It also looks to have been taken around the back of the old Charles ward, near the sewing rooms, a favourite place for taking photos.

    How I loved those days!!

    By Mary Saunderson (nee Luton) (13/02/2014)
  • I am not certain but the lady in the dark sleeves may be Sister Cinders who used to live in the small wooden fronted cottages where Norsey Road joins the High Street. She was in her 90s in around 1976.

    By Alastair Cuthbert (23/09/2011)

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