Beryl Round had just turned 17 when she began her nurse training.  Little did she think that it would lead to a lifetime of devotion to duty and that at 82 she would still be involved in serving the health of her local community!  But that’s just what Beryl is doing – as a volunteer at St. Peter’s Hospital, Chertsey, Surrey.

Her first contact with caring for the sick came as a teenager when she was part of the Red Cross Unit at her youth club and was asked to become a voluntary helper with the children who were patients at her local orthopaedic hospital in Birmingham.

Said Beryl: “I became so interested that I became a student nurse and began a four-year course on 31st December 1943.  I liked it very much and passed my orthopaedic exams before going on to qualify as a State Registered Nurse (SRN).”

At the same time as qualifying, with Honours, she received The Stewart Prize for the Best Nurse of 1943-46.  Beryl was also awarded the Nurse Haynes Memorial fund prize in memory of Sister Haynes killed in an air raid on Birmingham.

On 5 July 1948 – when the National Health Service came into existence - Beryl was on duty as a general nurse at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham and now, 60 years later, she has been nominated by the Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals NHS Trust, to attend a Service of Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey on Wednesday 2 July 2008 to mark the 60th Anniversary of the NHS.

Said Beryl: “I am really looking forward to going to the Westminster Abbey Service.  It will be an honour to be there and I feel I will be representing all the other people I have had the honour to work with, both as a nurse and a volunteer, in the NHS over the years.”

Beryl, Mrs Hughes, came south to Feltham from Birmingham by 1949 following her marriage.  Initially she nursed for a short time at the Clayponds Orthopaedic Hospital, Ealing, and then moved to Hammersmith Divisional Health office working in clinics and health education.  Beryl then joined the LCC, later GLC School Health Service at County Hall on the Embankment, administering recuperative Holiday Homes for sick children, and other related health matters.

She joined St. Peter’s Hospital’s A & E department as a staff nurse in 1958.  Beryl always made a point of working on Christmas Day, something she continued to do when she retired and became a volunteer “pair of hands” on a medical ward while also working as an A & E receptionist.  She then became a volunteer filing clerk in A & E reception where twice a week she collates and files 250-300 documents at a time, as well as answering the phone and “pulling” notes for clinics.

Said Beryl, of Ottershaw: “I love volunteering, and I am very fortunate that I am able to do it at my age.  It is very much a two-way thing and I do enjoy working in St. Peter’s A & E reception. The whole team here are super, from the top to the bottom. Volunteering gives you the satisfaction of doing something useful, particularly because I have always been connected with patients and nursing.”

Outside her NHS life Beryl has been a member of Addlestone Methodist Church for more than 20 years and finds she gains a great deal of strength and support from the church, which spurs her on with her zest for life.