Last updated 05:43, Friday, 22 August 2008

As a little the girl, Mary Wilson used to play in the Cumberland Infirmary grounds with the daughter of the hospital’s head porter. And it was there that the infirmary’s matron used to talk to her.

Born to nursing: Mary Wilson carried on caring into her retirement, as a volunteer at the infirmary and as chairman of the Cumbria branch of the National Autistic Society

Years later, as a result, young Mary was allowed into nursing training a year early, at the age of 17. She never looked back.

Nursing was her life and she gave her all to the profession. Even after she retired, she carried on raising much-needed funds for the infirmary and all her efforts were recognised when she received the MBE decoration from the Queen.

Aged 83 when she died, she was Carlisle born and bred. She loved the city and the Lake District and, despite travelling the world in later years, never wanted to be anywhere else.

Mary Eleanor Scott was born in Ashley Street, went to the nearby school and lived and worked in the area for almost all her life.

She went on to the Carlisle and County High School for Girls and afterwards found a job as a librarian in Tullie House.

She had always wanted to be a nurse but her father said she should experience something of the outside world before going into a training regime that, in those days, resembled entering a convent.

Then, trainee nurses were virtually cloistered in their collective ‘home’ and relationships were simply not allowed. Any trainee who married was shown the door.

Yet young Mary almost broke the rules. At the start of World War Two she became secretly engaged to a young bomber pilot who, a few days later, was killed in action.

How she dealt with this no-one knows but she carried on with her training in Carlisle, even when her patients included German prisoners-of-war, brought up to the city because the hospitals in the south were full. Despite her tragic loss, she nursed them as she nursed everyone else.

Then she went on to do a six-month midwifery training course in Liverpool, returning to Carlisle to work from the long-gone midwifery unit in Fusehill Street. There she was a member of the team which was on 24-hour call-out – on bicycles which they rode at all times of the day and night and in all weathers.

In those days, even in the poorest parts of the city, they were always given a warm welcome.

She did this arduous job for several years, before becoming a district nurse and then returning to mainstream nursing at the infirmary.

In 1949 she married John Wilson, a local man who worked at the Chapman’s furniture store on The Viaduct. He began work there as a tea boy and ended up as manager of the whole establishment. He died when he was 63.

His wife nursed thousands of patients over the years and, when she retired in 1986, was a sister in the accident and emergency department at the Cumberland Infirmary.

The hospital was the major part of her life and, after she retired, she carried on raising funds for it and working as a volunteer there.

She helped to raise many thousands of pounds to buy vital equipment and her many years of service, as a dedicated nurse and then as a volunteer worker, were recognised in 2000 when she became a Member of the British Empire.

Her care for others carried on long after her retirement. She served as chairman of the Cumbria branch of the National Autistic Society, raising much-needed funds and travelling the length and breadth of the nation to attend meetings and conferences.

Her travelling was not confined to the UK. In retirement she saw much of the world – visiting Russia, China, Singapore and Australia (nine times), among other places. And she always travelled on her own.

At home she was a keen bowler, who had been president of the Port Carlisle Bowling Club and a member of the Carlisle indoor club. She often travelled with the Port Carlisle club to venues far afield in Britain.

Her lifelong membership of the Wigton Road Methodist Church began when she went with her lay-preacher father to help lay one of the first foundation bricks of the new building in 1929. She then went with him to visit many of the little rural chapels which existed in those days and her young life was centred on the church and its clubs and social activities.

Twice she was nominated for the Cumbrian Woman of the Year title.

Mrs Wilson leaves her son, who is a paramedic in Carlisle, her daughter, a teacher in Australia, four grandchildren and her brother.

Her funeral took place at the Wigton Road Methodist Church and was followed by cremation. George Hudson and Sons made the arrangements.