Nurse who started healthcare career before the NHS formed finally retires aged 95
A nurse who started her healthcare career before the NHS was even born is finally retiring – aged 95.
Joyce Standring has dedicated her life to helping the sick – working in various nursing roles for the NHS and hospitals in Britain and abroad.
She wanted to be a nurse aged five and when she was eleven and WW2 began she joined the Red Cross as the “first cadet-type young person ever.”
She would go to the hospital every Saturday helping out in the children’s ward.
Joyce began her healthcare career in January 1948 – six months before the NHS was formed.
Since then she has worked as various nursing and medical roles including a midwife, theatre nurse, infection control nurse and senior administration.
Later she began a long stint in volunteering at the NHS Musgrove Park Hospital (MPH) in Taunton in Somerset – clocking up over 30 years there altogether.
She is now standing down from her voluntary role at the Somerset NHS Foundation Trust – at the grand age of 95.
She said she has been “busy” writing my memoirs for her grandchildren – which turned out to be a rather “thick booklet”.
Joyce said: “During the war I went to the local hospital every Saturday to spend time in the children’s ward, where I was a bit of a general dog’s body.
“When I turned 17, I told my parents that I wanted to be a nurse, to which my father laughed as he thought I’d simply faint at the sight of blood.
“Eventually I applied to the former Watford Peace Memorial Hospital and my aunt, who was a matron at Hill End Hospital, had been talking to the matron in Watford and I was accepted for training – a naughty thing to have happened, but I’m very pleased anyway.
“Having gained my S.R.N. qualification I worked on night duty until my parents decided that they were going to emigrate to New Zealand in 1952, where I became a theatre sister, specialising in cardiothoracic surgery, which was very new in those days.”
When she moved back to England she worked for a short time on a medical ward in the Redhill and Hastings hospitals.
Later on she would take on a similar role with the Iraq Petroleum Company – which posted her to a company hospital in Qatar for ex-pats and local employees.
She said: “In Qatar I specialised in low-risk midwifery, although the more complex expatriate employees’ wives were sent back to the UK or USA.
“When the company moved to Bahrain I became a midwife in the government hospital as married women were not employed by the oil company.
“The company then re-located to Abu Dhabi to their newly built residential camp for their developing oilfield, where I was asked by the British Embassy ambassador if I would consider working with the newly appointed director of health to set up a new hospital.
“This ended up with me developing my own clinic – where I treated all the women and children separately from the male patients and doctor – whereas previously the men would go to the doctor and tell them about their wife or daughter’s health needs.
“After returning to the UK in 1972 with the family, I came to MPH, where I joined the education department gaining my RCNT certificate.
“In 1976 we moved to Hemel Hempstead as my husband joined a firm as an oil consultant and I then became an infection control nurse working in a London hospital.
“A nurse working alongside microbiologists, haematologists and other path lab colleagues was a relatively new introduction.
“In 1980 I applied to Somerset Health Authority for a director of nursing services post for the area covering Bridgwater, and the community hospitals from Burnham-on-Sea down to Minehead, and the community nursing services covered those areas as well.
“After that I returned to MPH in the education department again and created several courses for end-of-life care, and a return to nursing, so I was teaching as well.
“Then I went into the senior management side of things, based out of County Hall, where I stayed until I retired.”
It was 30 years ago when Joyce’s “second career” as a volunteer began.
Managers at MPH put a call out for someone to go around and check that all the patient information and leaflets were in date, and from that she reviewed leaflets as they were written by various teams across the hospital.
“It became clear to me that some of the leaflets weren’t written in plain English, which made it difficult for some patients to understand,” Joyce continues.
“My role involved checking this from a member of the public’s perspective, which I did for many years.
“I was very involved with the hospital’s care of older people and infection prevention and control teams.
“I began with the care of older people department even before I became an MPH volunteer, as I also belonged to the Community Health Council, having been proposed by my Soroptimist International club, and was their representative for health and welfare.
“Because I was showing a particular interest in the elderly, the hospital management team invited me to join the care of older people team. Soon after that volunteering became a thing at MPH – so I became one.
“A short while after becoming a volunteer, I joined the infection prevention and control team, so my experience across the hospital was so varied.
“I’ve always found that as volunteers, our opinions, suggestions and offers of help were always listened to, and our values taken into account when discussions were taking place about our patients’/carers’ experience in the hospital.”
Joyce explained how becoming a volunteer in the NHS is the “most rewarding experience”.
“I’ve been a Musgrove Partner for over 30 years and have not regretted one moment,” she concluded.
Karen Holden, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust associate director for clinical transformation, adds: “On behalf of the many colleagues at MPH that Joyce has supported, challenged, inspired, shared ideas and thoughtful insights with, we give enormous thanks.
“Joyce has had such a positive impact in improving patient care over her 30 plus years in the Musgrove Partner role.
“She has been influential in the improvements to the service for our older, frail patients, and across the trust she supported audits, surveys, hand hygiene training (many of us recall the glow box with Joyce), infection control, support in oncology, radiology, care of the dying, chaplaincy, and research to name but a few.
“Her skills with plain English shone through, with reading and editing many patient leaflets and letters, including through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Joyce was able to help shape strategies and policies, ensuring we kept the patient and family experience at the centre of all we did.
“Colleagues have shared how they enjoyed interviewing with Joyce, in awe at her ‘killer questions’ for the candidates.
“We are grateful that right up until the summer Joyce was still involved with supporting our peri-operative service developments.
“With a cheerful, determined, intelligent and practical approach, colleagues have enjoyed and appreciated working with Joyce. We have all learnt so much from our time with her and she will be missed.”
Woman flew to Japan to create a funny Christmas card with a fake family
A woman flew to Japan to create a funny Christmas card with a fake family—and dressed up and played all the characters herself.
Brynn Shuller, 34, has been embodying her made-up family—’the Brynns’—for the last 10 years.
The idea started when Brynn found a costume chest hair and put together her first card—a 90s style photoshoot.
Brynn has since created over 40 photos of her made-up family, including 10 Christmas cards—such as the Brynns skiing, fishing, and in matching pajamas.
This year she even took her family international—picturing them on holiday in Japan.
She sends the cards to family and friends and sells them on Etsy, saying they find it hilarious and “love it.”
Brynn, a graphic designer, from Cincinnati, Ohio, US, said: “It’s funny when I put on the clothes I instantly get into the character.
“It’s so much fun creating the cards and playing the characters.
“I love it.”
Brynn created her first quirky card in October 2015.
She said: “I found a chest hair at the dollar store—the idea sprung on from there.
“After seeing the funny chest hair, I started planning my family.
“Byron, the dad, is awkward and always excited and happy.
“Brynnda, the mom, is always trying to make everyone happy but she is probably aggravated on the inside.
“Brynnie, the daughter, is so young and happy-go-lucky.
“Frank, the teenage son, is an outcast and is always grumpy and never enjoys the family photos.”
Last year, Brynn pictured the family in a park wearing 90s tracksuits, but this year she decided to take them international.
She said: “My friends were asking if I wanted to go to Japan with them.
“I thought ‘OMG, I’ve never taken my family internationally.’
“I decided to take my wigs and costumes.”
Brynn planned out where she wanted to take the photos—choosing the Fushimi-Inari-Taisha Shrine in Kyoto and the Nara deer park.
Brynn said: “I thought it would be really funny to have one of the deer biting Frank.
“One of them headbutted me on the bum, and in the card, it is my actual reaction.”
It took Brynn two hours to take the photos at the different locations and around two to three hours to edit it all together.
She is delighted with the results.
Brynn said: “I don’t know how to top myself.”
Brynn says her family finds it hilarious and fans online are always excited for the annual Christmas card.
Brynn doesn’t see herself stopping anytime soon and has already thought of ways she might incorporate a partner or child.
She said: “If I get married, what do I do? I’d have him in it and the fake dad lurking in the background.”
“I’m raising my first three kids as triplets – they were born exactly a year apart”
A mom found out she was pregnant with twins just five months after giving birth—and now she’s raising the children as triplets.
Chancè Hindir-Lane, 30, thought she was suffering from postpartum nausea and irregular periods weeks after giving birth to her oldest son, now five.
But during a postnatal check-up with her obstetrician in June 2020, she was given a routine pregnancy test.
The test came back positive—and an ultrasound revealed she was six weeks pregnant with twins.
Now, four years later, Chancè is raising the siblings as triplets, along with her youngest child, who is two.
She throws them joint birthday parties every year and says they have a “very close bond.”
Chancè, a content creator from Charlotte, North Carolina, said: “I thought I needed to go on birth control—but my doctor said I was pregnant with twins.
“I couldn’t believe I was seeing double—first, you’re telling me I’m pregnant with one baby—now, two.
“We kind of feel like we’re raising them as triplets—my eldest was still breastfeeding when I gave birth to the girls.”
On January 8, 2020, at 2:30 p.m., Chancè gave birth to her oldest child after a long and challenging pregnancy.
He weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces, and the pair stayed in the hospital for five days afterward due to Chancè hemorrhaging after labor.
Six weeks after coming home, the new mom realized she hadn’t started her period—but put this down to her recovery after birth.
“I’ve always struggled with irregular periods, so I didn’t think anything of it,” Chancè said.
“I spoke to my nurse about it, and she told me not to worry.
“She explained how hard it would be to get pregnant just a few weeks after giving birth.”
Chancè says she wasn’t allowed to start birth control at that time—guidelines recommend moms wait at least six weeks before resuming the combined pill or contraceptive patch.
At almost five months postpartum, and with no sign of her period, she discovered she felt sick at the smell of coffee—which she now realizes was a “telltale” sign of pregnancy.
She added: “I’m a heavy coffee drinker, but when I’m pregnant, I can’t stand the smell of it.
“I was on a trip to Quebec in June, and I was standing in Tim Hortons, and I had to leave because I couldn’t stand it.”
Thinking her hormones just needed to settle down, Chancè booked an appointment with her obstetrician shortly after arriving back in the U.S., believing birth control might help.
On June 18, 2020, she was told by her doctor to take a routine urine pregnancy test—something she always had to do during appointments.
But after returning the dipstick test to her obstetrician, she was “shocked” to find out she was pregnant again.
“I was shocked and so scared at how quickly it happened,” Chancè said.
“I thought: ‘How am I going to manage two kids under the age of two?’
“Having my son, I already knew it was quite a lot.”
But Chancè got a further shock when a sonographer gave her a transvaginal ultrasound and found two embryos in her womb.
The mom was sitting “in disbelief” after being told she was pregnant with twins.
Her immediate reaction was to begin planning for the new arrivals—as well as telling her family members.
She said: “As soon as I told my mom, she told me she’d been having dreams about me having twins and prayed on it.
“My sister said the same thing—they felt like I was always going to have twins eventually.”
The twins, now four, were born on January 10, 2021, at 7:40 and 7:42 p.m.—just two days after their brother’s birthday.
They weighed 3 pounds, 13 ounces, and 4 pounds—and needed to stay in the intensive care unit (ICU) for “weeks” afterward.
For the first seven months, Chancè breastfed all three of her children—which helped them to create a “triplet-like” bond.
Their first birthday party was a joint one, with all the family invited.
Chancè says they were a “team of three,” which has since expanded to four with the arrival of their younger brother.
“The twins adjusted really funnily to being older sisters,” she added.
“They kept looking at their baby brother and going: ‘No.’
“But they’re such a little team of four—the bond is so special.”
