GWEN KIRBY

CATALOGUE

RECORDING

SUMMARY

BORN: Greenhithe, Kent, 1911

LIVED: Lynton, Winsford

RECORDING MADE: 2000

RECORDING LENGTH: 1 hour 42 minutes

Gwen Kirby trained as an SRN at St Thomas's Hospital and then at Great Ormond Street. Night duty was twenty-eight nights on and two nights off. They were locked into the nurses home during the day, but she was too tired to mind. She went back to Great Ormond Street in 1951, as Matron. She was there eighteen years, during which time she fought to be allowed on committees and looked after her nurses. She was made an LVO on her retirement.

She is distantly related to Frances Newton (nee Vellacott) and they used to come on family holidays to Barbrook when she was a child. Her father walked them miles, which is how she developed her love of Exmoor. Then the Vellacott family moved to Winsford. The village became a second home to her and in 1975 she and her dog settled there permanently. She is the last of the Kirbys.

Gwen Kirby died in 2000.

Photograph by Mark J. Rattenbury