200 GATHER FOR REUNION

MORE THAN 200 ex-hospital staff were reunited for the first time in 12 years last Friday.

The former employees of St Helens Hospital came together for their first official reunion since the hospital closed in 1992.

Ex-theatre and dining staff, doctors, consultants, ward clerks and auxiliary nurses gathered at the Conquest Hospital Social Club for the event.

And everybody brought a plate of food to share like an American tea-party.

Organiser, Gaynor Butler, a former ward clerk at St Helens, said: "It was a really lovely evening. There were many faces I recognised, but I couldn't quite remember the names so a lot of us started wearing our christian names on badges. We took along old photos from the time and we had so much to talk about. Many had worked at St Helens as far back as the 1950s and many hadn't seen each other for years. It was a brilliant party."