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Notes:
EMail from Ruth 13/6/2008 - Ote. Personal detail cut. Full original in
box.
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Now it is rest time now so I am trying to get him to tell me
about Molly but he is being rather
vague!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, I never met her, Ted was
46 when we married and I was 16 that was 37 years
ago................so I never had the pleasure, I wish I had as
she sounded like a remarkable woman, although Granny Watkin
(also Mary Ellen-Molls mother) was likewise remarkable for those
times ,she was independent for many years and had wealth accrued
through shares in companies overseas and owning several
properties.....unfortunately the bank decreed when she married
Grandad Watkin that all this be put in his name as married women
didn't have Bank accounts................can you see that
happening today..............my word. Grandad Watkin then
systematically worked his way through all of her money
.........just like Ted spent my entire dowry of £2.50 |
Molly was was second eldest of 190 siblings. 8 girls and 2 boys. She was
brought up, together with her siblings at their home in Leigh House
Farm, Upton ,Widnes. Their father was a blacksmith and farmer. Present
day relatives report that girls seem to have had a lovely life,
painting, going to dances and such like. Molly was in a hockey team. Her
career really started when joined St Johns Ambulance. Whether she she
undertook any formal formal nursing training before becoming a member of
the VAD is not known.
In the words of one her relatives -
"I.. understand that the VAD short courses led to those nurses being
called "ignorant amateurs" by those who had done the three year courses.
We assume perhaps she did go on to do formal training as she became
Sister Sandhurst at Barts and won the gold nursing medal.........We know
she went to Malta during WWI with VAD and that then, during WWII she
nursed soldiers back in Britain we know she was at the Tower Hospital
Rainhill near to her home in Upton".
"Ted (one of her uncles) visited Barts around 1939 when he was living in
London. She was Sister on Sandhurst ward then and had been
a sister for some time. She had a room at Bart's - but then went on to
get an apartment in London. She had a very full social life, with the
theatre and such and she loved going on holiday abroad particularly
to Dubrovnic. Ted said that as a child he thought her "bossy" very
stern and strict, but she was very caring and never forgot birthdays and
always gave cards and gifts. Once, when they were living
in Wolverhampton, Ted remembers he cut his finger while she was visiting
and she set about treating it and told him to stop being a cry
baby.........
She didn't want to retire and felt she had been thrown out on the scrap
heap, Nursing was her life and she never married though she had many
admirers, after retirement she went on to do voluntary work escorting
patients around, Ted thinks they were people who had been in Bart's and
were being sent home to recuperate".
After this she returned to 29, Beaconsfield Road, Widnes to live with
her sister Grace, (Ted's mother) Ted, and his brother Bob.
Mary Ellen (Mollie) Watkin died there on 23rd November 1967, 80 years
after being born just a short distance away at Leigh House Farm.
Bringing to a close an outstanding life devoted to the nursing
profession largely unknown and unrecognized beyond her immediate family
and former colleagues, 18 years or so after her retirement.
Unrecognized, perhaps, until now that is...
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SECTION 1
Schools of Nursing.
SECTION 2
SECTION 3
Nursing Organizations
Statutory Bodies.
Nursing & Midwifery Council.
Professional/Trade Unions.
Royal College of Nursing.
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