Major Margaret (Maggie) Barclay QARANC
Margaret Barclay (known as Maggie) was born in May 1948 in Stafford. Her extended family were Staffordshire dairy farmers so much of her childhood was spent on the farms. Maggie and her two sisters had easy access to, and the freedom of the Staffordshire rural countryside, animals, nature and the natural world at weekends and school holidays.
She was a Cadet Nurse at Stafford College of Further Education and Staffordshire General Infirmary, 1963-1966 before starting nurse training at The Royal Salop Infirmary and Copthorne Hospital in Shrewsbury. She qualified in 1969 and went on to be a Staff Nurse in the same hospital.
Wanting to try something different she became an Air Stewardess for Donaldson International Airways based at Gatwick Airport and worked there 1970-1972.
Another change of employment saw her training as a midwife at Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital 1972-1973. She was then employed as a Staff Nurse in the Accident and Emergency Department at Westminster Hospital, London from 1973-1974 before training as an Operating Theatre nurse. She was an Operating Theatre Sister at the Westminster Hospital 1975-1977, at which time she was commissioned into the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps.
An account given to us by Margaret Barclay-Cooke