In September of 2015 I successfully completed a post –graduate diploma at Leeds Beckett University in specialist community public health nursing.

I have taken up a post at Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust as a specialist nurse.

My maiden name was Greenwood, I was at WGHS 1986-1993.
 
Jane Haigh
Specialist Community Public Health Nurse
Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust

Hilda Lockwood (1933) celebrated her hundredth birthday on 20 April 2015. 

She was born and brought up, the second of three girls, in Wakefield.  Her father was Chief Auditor for the West Riding County Council and her mother notable for her voluntary work at St George’s Church, Lupset.

Hilda’s Childhood was initially framed by the First World War but at the age of 11, in 1926, she joined her older sister, Mildred, at Wakefield Girls’ High School under Miss Mildred Martin. 

On leaving school she embarked on a career of “office work”.  Local Factories and the Register Office for Births, Marriages, and Deaths led to her transfer to the Colonial Office in London’s Downing Street at the beginning of the Second World War.  There, with other women, she proved her worth by filling the gaps left by the men who had been called up.  She survived The Blitz and found time to sing in the wartime adult choir at St Margaret’s Westminster, whose boys had been evacuated.

She remained in London, moving with the Colonial Office, on its absorption into the Foreign Office, her duties having included stewarding outside Westminster Abbey on Coronation Day. 

Her love of singing had been fostered while still in Wakefield, where she took lessons with Yorkshire’s famous contralto Mabel Sadler and joined the Leeds Choral Society.

This continued with her membership of the Goldsmith’s Choral Union, whose repertoire included Promenade Concerts in the Albert Hall and BBC Broadcasts. Post War she loved all the new theatre productions, and until four years ago spent many happy holidays travelling the world.

Hilda retired to Gloucester to be near her sisters and many nephews and nieces.  About thrity years spent as a resident in Gloucester Cathedral Close led to many more musical delights and where, despite a broken hip last year, she still worships every Sunday morning.  She is now settled in a residential care home and remembers with pleasure the friendships she made and the happy times she spent in Wakefield whilst reflecting with interest on the changes she has seen during her own century. 

Miss NB Lockwood