Back to the Wires

Next week I'm heading back to Warrington (Cheshire, NW England) to work in the community.

A circle of sorts will be closed, as this is where I started in 1977. Heading south on the A49 peddling a 5-speed bike, then motorbike, to my first car [early years framed by modes of transport yet again]. I got booked - a caution (?) for speeding on that bike, one Sunday morning on a 0700 start. Passing the church in Newton-Le-Willows there's a downhill ... you see ...

As a nursing assistant and then from October that year, a student nurse [RMN back then] I heard of the areas, and villages where patients lived, listening and writing the details umpteen times on admission documents. As a 'county asylum' patients were also from a very wide area. Returning as a Deputy Charge Nurse, I witnessed the initial shifts for patients to be resettled, moving closer to their original 'home' as community services expanded and the closure of Winwick was also being planned and subject to debate:

https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/1935/closure-of-winwick-and-newchurch-hospitals

'Community care' remains an ongoing project.

Being hospital-based I went out on placement with the community psychiatric nurses, but that's a blur of course.

Now for a return visit. Whilst always braced, I'm really looking forward too.

Winwick Hospital:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winwick_Hospital

Wire in Warrington: 

https://wmag.culturewarrington.org/local-history/the-wireworks/warringtons-wire-timeline/

Previously: 

https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/search?q=Winwick