97 year-old patient gets involved in hospital ward’s remembrance service for World Armistice Day
A grandmother from Mapperley has been sharing her World War II memories with staff at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), as part of World Armistice Day Festival of Remembrance being held at a Queen’s Medical Centre l ward.
Irene Mitchell, who’s 97 years old, was just 20 years old when World War II started. She met her husband Sydney who was a soldier from Nottingham and remembers the terrifying moment her mum and seven sisters would run to the air raid shelter in the middle of the night.
Irene said: “The war was terrible; everybody had to share out the work as best they could but when the sirens went off everybody knew the bombers were overhead, you could hear the engine sounds and you would drop everything and run for cover. Sometimes we would be in the shelter for hours waiting for the all clear signal so we could go back to what work. I worked at Boots Pharmacy during the war making special vitamin rich orange juice for babies, because of the rations. There weren’t that many roles either help out the local community or go off to war and I didn’t want to leave my mum and the kids.”
This week NUH staff on the Trauma and Orthopaedic wards are hosting a Festival of Remembrance for patients, which includes visits from Royal British Signal Soldiers, singers and entertainments, and bake sales, all in support of World Armistice Day on Sunday 11 November.
Emily Mulvaney, Ward Sister at QMC, who has helped organise the remembrance festival on her ward said: “It is really important to remember those who have died for the freedoms we have today. This year’s centenary celebration is important to many of the patients on our ward who have close connections to the Second World War, some will have parents, husbands and wives who fought and we decided to hold this festival of remembrance ahead of the day for our patients and to raise money for the veterans.”
So far the team have raised over £150 in poppy sales for The Royal British Legion and money donations from the bake sale will go to the Royal Signals Benevolent Fund.
Irene, the grandmother of two added: “I met my husband Sydney just before the war started and we decided to get married when he came home on his first leave. We knew that on his next trip he was going to be sent abroad and it was not definite when I would next see him again. As Sydney left I told him that if anything ever happened to him whilst at war I would never marry again, but we were reunited six years after marrying and it was wonderful.”