"Yes, I love football!" Highvolume Play Pause Stop

Tony Dennison recalling his interview for a Cadet Nurse post at the Royal Albert Hospital. Please scroll down the page and click on the Pdf for the transcript.

 

Tony Dennison 2006

 

Mrs Wareing - probably taken during the 1960s.

Courtesy of Lancashire County Council Museums Service

Tony Dennison recalls his job interview in July 1973, aged 17, for a place at the Royal Albert as a Cadet Nurse.  He was interviewed by Mrs Wareing, who was the Matron.

Tony went on to work at the Royal Albert as a nurse from the 1973 to the 1990s. At the time of this oral history interview on September 20th 2005 Tony was Course Leader on the Learning Disability Branch in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at St. Martins College, Lancaster. Shortly after that date the college became the University of Cumbria.

(In the extract, Tony recalls how he was asked at his job interview about an interest in playing football. This was not an unusual approach to interviewing men who were applying for posts in the Royal Albert and similar institutions. For an oral history case study of the place of sport, especially football, in the recruitment and identity of male nurses in long-stay institutions please see:

Mitchell, H. (1997) Sporting Institutions: Football, Masculinity and Community Identity at Lennox Castle Hospital. Oral History, Vol 25, No. 1 pp 71-74)