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| Final member of 1974 Free team
retires after 38 years |
Nurse says the Free has proved doubters
wrong since it opened 31 years ago
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Hilary Flunder, middle in dark uniform, with her first patient
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PARADING elephants, rugby scholarships and a visit from the Queen.
Those are just some of the memories from the Royal Free Hospital’s
longest serving nurse, Hilary Flunder, who has retired after 38
years’ loyal service.
On Friday, Mrs Flunder, 58 – the last nurse left at the hospital
from the team that opened the building in 1974 – hung up her
uniform. Her colleagues threw her a surprise party to mark the end
of an era.
Mrs Flunder is set to leave her flat in Daleham Gardens, Belsize
Park, for a quiet life in her family home on the Lizard Peninsula
in Cornwall.
With one pub and one shop, and fewer people than the hospital has
patients, she is looking forward to clotted cream and windswept
walks with her border collie.
She said: “The Women’s Institute have already interviewed
me, but I’m not sure I’m quite what they’re looking
for.”
As the only member of staff to have worked on all the Free’s
wards – in urology, renal, EMT, surgery, supplies and administration
– she knows a thing or two about the hospital. She remembers
the day the building opened its doors to a sceptical public. She
said: “The press were there and everyone was presented with
goody bags. The public were really against the design of the building
– they thought it was a blot on the landscape.
“We were supposed to have 12 patients but there ended up being
22 – no change there then!”
Mrs Flunder told how excited doctors were about the design of the
building. She said: “Gone were the single sex wards and in
came dining rooms and a social scene. The idea was that women might
put make up on, and men might shave if they were in the same room
together. It didn’t work.”
Mrs Flunder remembers her first patient, Gerry Brennan (pictured).
“He was a lovely Irishman, a taxi driver. He came and met me
on the Free’s 150th anniversary celebrations in 1978.
“The celebrations were wonderful – a real carnival. We
all wore pink elephants because that was the nurses’ mascot
at the time. One of my fondest memories was when someone organised
an elephant parade through Hampstead as part of the celebrations.
“We had a rugby team too. They played in the medical grounds.
But because most the staff were female so we didn’t do very
well.
“One year we made it to the final but St Mary’s beat us.
I’m sure they were taking on doctors based on how well they
played rugby.”
But Mrs Flunder’s high point was when the Queen visited.
She said: “I walked her around the ward and she talked to every
single patient.”
But one unruly patient missed out on the visit after Mrs Flunder
locked him in the toilet so as not to upset the Royal visit.
“He was senile,” she explained.
So will Mrs Flunder miss the Free? She said: “I’ll miss
the people. It’s been a lot of fun, right from the start it
felt right. The Free was like a new family for me.”
Mrs Flunder was diplomatic about the changes facing the Free. She
said: “No one likes change. But this is an enormously versatile
hospital – it is like a breathing organism. It was never meant
to stand still.” |
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