As the NHS celebrates its 70th Anniversary in July, the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust (RUH) has been talking to some of the staff who were there at the very beginning.

Seventy years ago, Edith Kenney was one of the first student nurses to join the fledgling NHS at what has become the RUH, Bath, today.

Times were very different in 1948. Post-war rationing was still in force. The then Edith Barker, aged eighteen and living with her family in Bath, earned just £5 a month.

Edith said: “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a nurse, but my grandmother and parents were very much against it. My grandmother thought I would be a skivvy – so I shelved my ambition and worked as an office secretary.”

Then she spotted an advert in The Bath Chronicle looking for hospital volunteers at evenings and weekends to help out on the wards. Edith saw this as her chance to get closer to the job she always wanted.

“I was so excited when I went for my interview, and even more so when I was asked to join the volunteering team.

I enjoyed every minute of it.

I loved talking to the patients, giving them cups of tea and helping Sister whenever she asked me. One day Sister Hughes said to me: ‘Why don’t you become a nurse, Edith? You’re a born nurse and you absolutely love it.’ This was true, but I explained my family was against the idea.”

But Edith persevered. Her family eventually relented, and in 1947, she was accepted on the hospital’s three-month Preliminary Training School. “Our set was all female nurses – no married nurses allowed and there were very few male nurses. We lived in one of those big houses opposite the RUH and were taught the basic nursing skills from our Sister tutor, such as how to make a hospital bed, giving a blanket bath, giving injections, taking blood pressure, bandaging, preparing a poultice and even how to apply leeches.

“We all longed for the day we could have our black belt, cast away our butterfly hats and have our dark blue nurses’ uniform. Our salary was £5 per month – equivalent to £180 today. But we were satisfied because we had full board, laundry of our uniform, a maid to clean our rooms and breakfast in bed on our day off. The hours were long but we had jolly times in Bath, as long as we were back by 10 p.m. and respected the rules.”

In 2015, Edith was a patient at the RUH and noticed several changes from her time as a nurse. “Our visiting hours were different back then, it was just Wednesday and Saturday 2.30 p.m. to 3.30 p.m. No children could visit and patients were allowed to smoke.

“The nurses today are just as devoted as we were – much busier in a different kind of way. Nowadays they’re able to do things that only a doctor would do in our day. I could see the technical differences today’s nurses are able to do.”

Edith worked at the RUH for four years, spending time on different wards as part of her training and on Duncan Ward as a volunteer and qualified nurse. She left the RUH in 1952 to work at Winsley Chest Hospital, later becoming a midwife and also working as a District Nurse in Taunton.

She said: “When I go back for our nursing reunions I feel like I did when I was younger. I would like to wish the NHS a very Happy 70th Birthday.”

The RUH is collecting stories and memorabilia. [email protected].