Peter’s Story

Peter Minney will have worked at Rushden Hospital for 45 years in August. He was 15 years old when he started as a gardener in the greenhouses. These are some of his recollections of Rushden Hospital.

Peter remembers when Rushden used to be the headquarters for the Gardeners (instead of St. Mary’s today). There used to be 7 gardeners at Rushden. Now, there’s just Peter!

Rushden Hospital was a TB hospital until the early 1960s. People said that TB could be caught through sharing the same crockery so this used to really well sterilized in big machines.

There used to be an apple orchard and 1,000 poutry and 20 pigs were kept. Vegetables were grown for the patients and Peter used to drive the tractor to plough the fields. He would ‘drop-off’ goods at other hospitals: Highfield Hospital, Cottage Hospital, Rockingham Road Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital all had eggs delivered and Isebrook Hospital and Kettering General Hospital received the surplus. This all stopped in the early 1960s.

The ‘big-house’ – now the administration block – was used for staff accommodation. The matron, sisters and the maids used to ‘live-in’.

There used to be 90 patients in the hospital, located on two wards: Ward 14 and Ward 20 as they were then known. The really poorly people went to Ward 14. As they improved they transferred to Ward 20 where they were allowed to get up for 2 hours a day. They were then moved on to the day hospital when they were nearly ready to go home. By now, they would be up and about and would go into town to get the shopping for the wards.