Radcliffe nurses reflect at the end of an era

"At the pub opposite, a lot of the doctors used to go in there when they were on call. And one of them had gone in there carrying a bag of blood."

Sarah Wilkins is mid-anecdote, holding court at a meet-up of nurses who trained at the old Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford.

"He was called out, and he crossed Woodstock Road, fell over onto the pack of blood - and all people could see was a white coat and blood. It looked dreadful."

The nurses shout out with laughter. Training at the Infirmary between 1961 and 1976, they've met up today to recapture the memories of their old stomping ground.

It's one of their last chances to do so.

Because on Saturday, the Radcliffe Guild of Nurses, the alumni group they've been members of for decades, will reach its centenary anniversary - and fold due to lack of members.

"The Infirmary closed in 2007, so we aren't getting new members and our membership is more and more elderly," says president Xante Cummings.

"Every year we organise a reunion, and the numbers have been dropping off significantly.

"So we decided we'll get to 100 and then we'll close."

It's a sad time for the remaining members, who have used the group to stay in touch with friends from their training days.

But they have fond (and often funny) memories of those times.

"On night duty we had a desk in the middle of the ward, and in those days everybody smoked," Thelma Sanders says.

"We used to have a saucer in the desk drawer with water in it so that when the night sister came round you could stab your cigarette out in the water.

"We forgot to take it out one morning so the day sister came on, pulled the drawer open - to all these wet dog ends."

Just as nursing students no longer smoke inside, so the profession has seen many other changes in the years since.

"We were on the job right from the start, literally starting right from the bottom with bed pans," Sarah says.

"Whereas I think when you start with books, you don't have that experience.

"You can't make somebody comfy with their pillows if you've never done it."

But for these women, once nurses, now more often patients, some things have stayed the same.

"For all these inevitable changes, the feeling is still there - comforting and reassuring," Xante says.

"There are still some wonderful nurses."

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