The NHS is one of the largest organisations in the world and Newbury woman Carol Irlam gave decades of her life to it.
Mrs Irlam has retired after 50 years of service as a nurse.
And she still remembers her first days on the job.
She was born in Newbury but moved to London at the age of 18 to complete her training.
She had to live in for six months and was under a 12am curfew – with a home sister who would tick her colleagues in and out.
And she says times were different with her first pay packet being £47 and her rent at £22.
And when the nurses went on their drug rounds, they gave patients their tablets with Guinness and wine.
The hospitals held pantomime-like shows with everyone from cardiologists to nurses taking part.
She stayed there from 1973 to around 1978 before going to Reading for midwifery.
She then moved to Manchester, working in a cancer hospital before being an A&E sister.
Mrs Irlam worked at the old Battle Hospital for a while before going into district nursing locally – spending around 18-years at Eastfield Surgery.
The mother-of-two retired at 58-years-old and has spent the past 10 and half years working in the day surgery unit at West Berkshire Community Hospital.
She said: “I have enjoyed every minute of it.
“And I have met some fabulous patients, it is a great honour to look after people at their most vulnerable.
“You get some much joy and you learn so much from them.”
The 69-year-old said the struggles of the job have been mostly surrounding pay.
“You shouldn’t have to work extra shifts to have a normal life,” she said.
“When I was in London, everyone knew nurses were poorly paid and you wold go out to the market with your outside uniform on, because they had outside uniforms then, and in Sheppard’s Bush they would give you apples and pears and say here you are nursey you don’t get any money.
“You were well looked after and you would get on buses for free then.
“It was a completely different life.”
The Newbury-born woman, whose two children and two grandchildren also live in the town, said that she has enjoyed her time working in the town she was born.
“It is nice that local people service local people,” she said.
“And Newbury is a special town.
“It has been a privilege to be a nurse.”
