Wardlife Highvolume Play Pause Stop

'The bath water had to be 98 degrees."

Maggie Potts and Rebecca Fido (in their book ‘A fit person to be removed’) talk about the ‘three R’s’ of ...
'There were so many people and so few staff."

David Whalley did his nurse training at Calderstones between 1969 and 1972. Integral to the training at that time was working ...
"Big, big fellas…" Moving from a boy's ward.

Norman arrived at the Royal Albert, aged 4 years old, in 1941. He went straight to the relatively newly built ...
"Even if you wanted to see your friend, you couldn’t."

Frank Cochrane and Harry Oldham, former residents, remember the food and seating arrangements in De Vitre Hall at the Royal ...
"I’ll never forget things like bath nights."

John, born in 1960, was a Nursing Auxillary at Brockhall Hospital for about a year from 1982 to 1983. He ...
"In the same water."

Two former Royal Albert Hospital residents, Frank Cochrane and Harry Oldham recalled their experiences of taking a bath as young men ...
"Out of bathing"

Mrs Creed was one of the longest serving nurses at the Royal Albert Hospital. Her career spanned the 1940s to ...
"The staff never go to sleep…"

Alan Gunn was born in January 1940. Alan went to live in Calderstones in September 1955 when he was 15 ...
"They used to throw food at one another"

Former residents (Frank Cochrane, Harry Oldham, Peggy Palmer) remember the meals in De Vitre Hall at the Royal Albert in ...
"We used to get blackclock soup!"

Memories of life at the Royal Albert in the first half of the last century touch upon meal times in ...
“’Swallow! Swallow!’”

John, born in 1960, was a Nursing Auxillary at Brockhall Hospital for about a year from 1982 to 1983. Here he ...
“You'd do your bundles before you left.”

John recalls the bedtime practice of ‘bundles’ of clothing. This way of doing things was common at one time to ...
Turps, soap, cocoa and lentils…

Here is a list of grocery and other items bought by the Royal Albert Institution between October and December 1936. There ...