AS the country celebrates the seventy-fifth birthday of the National Health Service, Monmouth is to mark the occasion with a book about working or being treated at its cottage hospital.

Everyone with memories or pictures to share is invited to email them to [email protected] or to phone Charles Boase on 01600 715076.

Some former members of staff and patients, and people who put an enormous amount of effort into the League of Friends, have already supplied us with fascinating information to use in the book, but we could do with much more. Please get in touch with us if you have any memories or photos that tell the story of this cherished institution.

Looking back to the day when it all started, it is hard now to realised how uncertain the future felt and indeed how much unhappiness there was in some quarters at the creation of the NHS.

“The controlling body is now the North Monmouthshire Hospitals Management Committee,” said treasurer Mr R. J. Barrow through gritted teeth in a report to the final meeting of the Monmouth Hospital committee, “and we very much regret to find that there is no representative, either medical or lay, on that committee resident in this part of the county nor of those portions of the adjoining counties which we have served for so many years.”

Mr Barrow continued: “We have handed to the National Health Service a hospital of which we, locally, have every reason to be proud and which with equipment and endowments may be worth at least £70,000.” Among the assets “taken over by the Ministry of Health” were Stock Exchange securities valued at £14,803 together with £5,019 held in trust for the endowment of special beds.

The Welsh Regional Hospital Board, in a letter, thanked the committee for their valuable service in the hospital field which they had rendered in the past. “The Minister and the Welsh Regional Hospital Board venture to express their confidence that your personal support and interest will continue to be devoted to the objective we all have in common – the welfare, treatment and cure of the hospital patient,” it said.

The chairman, Capt. H. G. Tyler, remarked at the last annual meeting just before the handover on 5 July 1948, “I do not think our hospital will be done away with altogether”. The committee, he said, would be coming to an end soon and the Hospital’s funds taken out of their hands to be administered by “a higher authority”.

“But, although we are being taken over by a hospital board” he added “there will still be a great deal of work for helpers to do and the hospital will want all the help it can get.”

Capt Tyler said the Chairman North Monmouthshire Hospitals committee, Sir David Rocyn Jones, had assured him that the new committee, which had met at the hospital, were out to do all they could for the hospital.

The committee went around the hospital, Capt Tyler said, and were favourably impressed with everything. He said that they would welcome the formation of a local group or guild of friends of the hospital. Capt. Tyler suggested the Mayor might be asked to call a public meeting to discuss the matter.

They had received several inquiries and offers to continue subscriptions to the hospital, sometimes with the proviso that such subscriptions should be used at the discretion of the local body and not the North Monmouthshire Committee. Friends of the hospital might provide such things as additional comforts for patients and staff.

In the discussion that followed, Mrs Harding pointed out that as everything had been taken over, she did not see why they should have to provide anything.

Lieut. Col. J. Harding remarked: “The more we do for the hospital the less they will do.”

The British Hospitals’ Association had submitted a draft constitution for a League of Friends in connection with the hospital said Capt Tyler, and his suggestion was that a body of friends of the hospital should be formed with a minimum subscription of 2/6 or 5/- to encourage as many as possible to join. They might find visitors and provide odds and ends for the hospital.

It was decided to ask the Mayor to call a meeting of friends of the hospital to discuss the matter.

The League of Friends was duly formed and continues to this day, raising thousands of pounds over the years for patient comforts and staff wellbeing.

At the end of the last annual meeting, Capt Tyler said they would like to say that notwithstanding any change in management or organisation, it was their earnest wish that there may always be a Monmouth Hospital to serve this area and that it may be worthy of all the devotion and generous self-sacrifice which its legion of supporters had given during the 80 odd years of its history.

The report and statement of accounts were adopted and the Chairman paid tribute to the work of the matron and staff for their unfailing loyalty under difficulties such as the shortage of staff. He also thanked members of the local Red Cross and St John Ambulance for their assistance and spoke of the excellent work done by the sewing party.