Reunion

Today I spent a lovely few hours with friends I made 46 years ago when I first moved here from Africa. We all started our RGN training in the summer of 1974 and spent the next 3 years living together, sharing the heartaches of young love and learning to care for people who needed support, care and were often at their lowest ebb.
We spent our time off enjoying this vibrant city and above all .... having fun. Today the eight of us who made it revisited all those memories again and laughed and laughed. The collage shows us at lunch and is surrounded by images of the spot where our hospital once was as the area looks now.
Tragically the building was demolished some years ago ( the bottom centre image shows the site now) so all that is left is the chapel ( bottom left). The building had dated back to 1700’s I think and my mum did her nurse training there after the war in the late 40’s where she remembers nursing patients with severe polio in iron lungs.
We all reminisced about the PO tower bomb going off in the height of the IRA terrorism .... it was a summer afternoon and all the windows shook with the blast. One of the other buildings .... the slightly curved corner one , was an Italian Restaurant we frequented for ‘ special’ occasions. The friend I have been staying dug out the old photos .... one taken I think in Regent Park in the long hot summer of ‘75 and the other shows me in my room at the nurses home .All a long time ago but very special memories.