The Laundry girls from the Stockton & Thornaby Hospital c1949. Photographs courtesy of Jacqueline Henderson
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
The Laundry girls from the Stockton & Thornaby Hospital c1949. Photographs courtesy of Jacqueline Henderson
Picture Stockton Archive 
Jean, quite a few people went to such organisations in those days, but what you have got to remember is I was a young teenager then and believe it or not there was two of us me and Peter White and we were tolerated more than welcomed, but we served our purpose for them. The youth seemingly doing good to encourage others to do the same, (it never worked). At the same time we enjoyed every minute of it. I will probably have known her but names are not now or were they then my forte. Just a thought there was a younger member there a bit older than me and Pete, Ted Cairns, a barber, who was married, had a wife called Jean and a boy and girl, they lived at the Sheep Field on Hardwick. Was The Red Cross building in Peel Street, as I remember passing my Aunt Gladys and Uncle Chick Hadman in Gilmour Street on the way there. Roy.
LikeLike
Roy, I wonder if you remember my Mother – Marjorie Cairns. She was a member of the Red Cross and was in the Thornaby Detachment. I think she would have been there at the same time that you mention.
LikeLike
Haunted Hospital Memories – Being a member of The Red Cross 1965/69 (Voluntary Aid Detachment VAD at Thornaby) one of my voluntary duties with a friend Peter White was to attend Stockton and Thornaby Hospital one night a week on the wards. ‘If I had of known about those beauties in the Laundry, Jacqueline Henderson, 10 Jan 08, pictures t9471 to 9473, I may have changed to one day a week’ and worked in the Laundry. Getting side tracked again. Doing nothing technical, just menial tasks to help out the patients and staff alike. Going about your normal Saturday duties down the town and, hello you remember me third bed on the left two weeks last Thursday? With all the will in the world you could not remember them all, you were one, they were thirty plus on one ward, which changed from week to week. Coming on the ward someone busting for a bottle for the last hour you get them it have five minutes talk with them and move on, you are instantly someone special to them, they remember you, embarrassing when stopped in the street it still haunts me now. Not as much as when I went nursing full time for four years and the stories that I could tell then, nightmares some of them, but you don’t want to hear about them. Roy.
LikeLike
I believe these photos were taken in the grounds of Stockton & Thornaby hospital in the 1940″s. These are some of the girls who worked in the laundry around the late 40″s and early 50″s. Some I can name as they are related to me. 3 of them are sisters Florrie, Sheila and Clara Parker all from Thornaby. Another of their sisters Freda also worked in the hospital in the linen department. One of the photos shows what looks like an outing, which also shows more of the Parker siblings, Brenda and Clifford. Someone may recognise other faces, and I would be curious to know if anyone could identify where the outing was.??
LikeLike