A FORMER secretary who worked at Berryfield House in Bradford on Avon when it was a maternity hospital has been reminiscing about her time on the wards.

Mrs Joan Pearce, 87, of Heddington Close in Trowbridge, began working at the former maternity hospital in Berryfields Road in June 1952 and stayed there for 11 years.

The maternity hospital opened in 1939, at the start of the Second World War in anticipation of the arrival of evacuees and their mothers. It continued as a maternity hospital until 1979 when it became Bradford on Avon Hospital. The hospital closed in 2006 when the site was turned into housing.

“I started working at the maternity hospital in 1952," said Mrs Pearce.

"At the time there was a hospital and a house for the nurses where the Woolley Grange Hotel is now.

"The maternity hospital opened during the war and expectant mothers would come to the country to have their children.

"It was a lovely old building which has now been turned into a private house,” she added.

Mrs Pearce and her team were on hand to ensure that expectant mothers were looked after while at the hospital, which was also used as a training centre for midwives.

“We were also a training school. Trainee midwives spent three months in a hospital, three months in a district and then the remainder of their time with us."

Although she worked in an administrative role, Mrs Pearce spent a lot of time with the expectant mothers, regularly visiting the wards.

"I wasn’t in an office away from the patients, I interacted a lot with them,” she said.

“I had to go round and collect the ladies’ coupons for their meals and also do the admin. In those days the fathers didn’t attend the births so I also had the job of informing them of the news.”

Mrs Pearce remembers celebrating Christmas and New Year’s Eve at the nurse’s house in Woolley Grange.

"At Christmas we had a big tree and a crib in the hall, they were always lovely at the hospital. You wouldn't get that these days, we used to also have decorations.

“On New Year’s Eve we had a lovely party.

"I remember the doctors coming and having a drink with the nurses and everyone getting quite drunk. It was very good fun,” she added.