‘We’ll miss you, Mama Cath’: Nurse retires after 60 years at Hull Royal
‘CATH SHOWED US WHAT NURSING REALLY MEANS’: Colleagues present Cath Lyon with a bouquet of flowers on her last day at work
By Simon Bristow, Co-Editor
A Hull nurse has retired after 60 years working for the NHS.
Cath Lyon, a staff nurse at Hull Royal Infirmary’s Emergency Department (ED), spent her last day at work on Monday, February 2 – just a few weeks before her 80th birthday.
She started her career in the city on August 1, 1962 at the tender age of 16 – just a few days after finishing school. Aside from a couple of years off to have her three sons, she’s spent her whole career at the hospital.
Cath said: “I was the last of the white cadets, and we used to do filing and tidying up in areas like X-ray and pharmacy. I studied to be a nurse alongside the job and I’ve been working in ED for 20 years.
“Before that, I was a night sister which has now been replaced by site matrons. We were responsible for the hospital on the night shift. My first role was as a staff nurse in neurosurgery, I remember it very fondly. We had our own night cook and they’d make you any food you wanted.”
Cath, who colleagues used to call “the minors’ queen”, said the advice she used to give to people wanting to be a nurse is “you need a good pair of hands and a good brain”.
She’s seen many changes over the years, one of the biggest being the introduction of digital ways of working in the NHS.
“Everything was pen and paper when I first started, there were no computers,” she said. “The hospitals are also much busier than they used to be.”
The highlight of Cath’s career has been caring for patients, a big part of being a nurse.
‘I’VE LOVED EVERY MINUTE’: Cath Lyon
She said: “I have loved every minute of it. Just being able to help patients when they need it, even if it’s something as simple as making them a drink or fetching them a blanket.”
Cath is now looking forward to spending time with her four grandchildren. She celebrated her final day at work with a send-off from her colleagues in ED.
Emma Jones, ED Matron, said: “Cath is known to us all as Mamma Cath. She is the kind of nurse who becomes the heartbeat of a place, and after 60 years of service to the NHS — retiring at the incredible age of 80 — her legacy is stitched into the walls of the Emergency Department.
“She kept us going through the hardest nights with perfectly-timed midnight snacks, and she never allowed standards to slip. Caring, honest, and endlessly devoted to the ED, and could clean like no other.
“Cath showed us what nursing really means; compassion with backbone, humour with authority, and love for patients and colleagues that never once clocked off. We will miss you, Mamma Cath.”