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Vintage items spark happy memories

Library staff hold up old vinyl albums, a copy of the Daily Sketch newspaper from the Queen

Main image: Library assistant James Harding and trainee clinical librarian Betsy Morgan with donated items

 

A Harry Secombe cassette, a copy of the Daily Sketch newspaper from Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation, a wooden clothes peg and hand whisk are not standard hospital equipment.

But such is the power of vintage items in helping patients with dementia recall happy memories that these donated gems and others like them will soon be seen on wards across Swansea Bay.

Boxes of nostalgia items are being collated by the health board’s library service and will be available for staff to borrow for use with patients.

Trainee clinical librarian Betsy Morgan thanked staff and the public for the kind response to an appeal for items from the 1930s to the1990s that was issued last year.

A number of vintage items are laid out on a table. Left to right: A fishing reel, a Kodak box camera from the 1950s, a wooden cotton bobbin, a beard trimmer, a wooden tie press, a hand whisk, a Bush portable CD player, a boot stretcher, a wooden clothes peg, a Harry Secombe cassette and a brass ladies glove stretcher. Credit: SBUHB

She said three or four boxes will soon be available at each of the libraries in Morriston, Singleton, Neath Port Talbot and Cefn Coed hospitals. They will be moved around regularly, so staff have access to different items.

“These once common things can be a great conversation starter with a patient who has memory impairment,” said Betsy.

“Having patients hold the items is a really tactile experience and takes them back to a period in time that might be significant for them, whether that’s childhood or early adulthood. It can prompt memories that can be used in therapy with clinicians.”

Among the donated items are:

  • A set of brass weighing scales and a large pestle and mortar which once belonged to a GP at a time when they would also make up and dispense their prescriptions.
  • Ration books from the 1940s and ‘50s.
  • A Kodak box camera from the 1950s.
  • An ornate brass ladies glove stretcher.
  • A Bakelite (early form of plastic) light switch. These were common in homes in the 1930s to 1940s.
  • A 12-inch Sony colour TV from 1969-70 which, at the time, was a major technological advance in colour television sets.
  • Dozens of original vinyl albums including Glenn Miller, Perry Como and Elvis.
  • Commemorative cups and plates.

Anyone interested in making a donation or staff who would like to use the boxes can email Betsy.Morgan@wales.nhs.uk

A selection of old newspapers A selection of newspapers from Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation in 1953 Credit: SBUHB

 

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