In kinder days

Porter Class 1 and his weekly wage packet went up by 4 shillings, to £5 and 6 shillings.

The Management Committee also agreed to a recommendation from the Bristol Association of Building Trade Employers (BABTE) of a halfpenny an hour increase for craftsmen on two shillings and ninepence an hour. Labourers got the same increase, taking their hourly rate to 2 shillings and 3 old pence.

Set up in 1916, the College of Nursing only achieved its Royal status just before World War II.

The RCN gets no mention in the committee minutes, but it is clear that nurses were respected.

Any who went off sick remained on full pay for several months before going onto half pay, sometimes for as long as another three months. Only then would they be examined to see whether they should be pensioned off.

Most of the staff were covered by agreements reached with the local branch of the recently-formed Confederation of Health Service Employees.

Anticipating the need for a strong voice to represent health workers in a National Health Service, COHSE had been set up in 1946, a merger of the Mental Hospital and Institutional Workers Union and the Hospital and Welfare Services Union.

In 1993 it linked up with public sector unions NUPE and NALGO to form UNISON, the country's largest union, which continues to advocate for health workers in the current round of pay disputes.

COHSE did not win all its battles. It took up cudgels on behalf of three charge nurses who argued that their 11-month voluntary supervision of patients should make them eligible for Mental Health Officer status. But the committee turned them down, saying it did not fit with hospital conventions about volunteering.

And there was a slightly sour end to 1948: COHSE members were upset because the final payday of the year was switched from December 30 to 31 without any consultation.