Tears before Bedtime

Aside

The other morning I got a letter from the secretary of my old training school; The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital with the minutes of the last meeting which I had not attended. Reading aloud to MTL I suddenly became choked and couldn’t continue with tears streaming down my face. MTL couldn’t understand why on earth I should get emotional about minutes of a meeting I had only once attended since I left in 1951.

The hospital was founded in 1829 and in the next year it will be closed and a new building is to be built in the city which will amalgamate the two children’s hospital in the area. This I knew about and had accepted and was sad that dear old ‘Pen’ (the hospital is in Pendlebury) would be no. more. The sentence which caused my tears was ‘today she was pleased to announce that the new children’s hospital is to be called ’The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.’

Why should the continuation of the name mean so much? For one thing many of us spent our most formative years there and experienced the joys and sadness one gets from nursing very sick children. And we took great pride in its reputation built up over the years. When I spoke to the secretary later she told me that most of the room had dissolved in tears.

Have you ever got emotional about an inanimate object?