Steve Watts bids farewell after long career in portering and estates

Spotlight

Steve Watts bids farewell after long career in portering and estates

Hot on the heels of a number of long serving trust colleagues retiring this year, the latest to hang up his…porter’s trolley…is assistant facilities manager Steve Watts.

Steve has enjoyed a long and varied career, mainly at Musgrove Park Hospital, bar for a brief stint in the stores department at the former Mendip Hospital in Wells on a youth training scheme placement at the very beginning of his career.

By the time his six months in Mendip ended, he was told by his manager that there was a job going at Musgrove if he wanted it – he took it of course, and never looked back!

“I transferred to Musgrove as a kitchen porter in December 1981 and stayed in there for a couple of years,” he says.

“During this time I got to know the portering services manager quite well, and he asked whether I fancied coming to work for the portering team, an opportunity I jumped at, and I’ve been in that department ever since.

“I began in our estates team as a relief general porter at a time where we used to cover all of the hospitals in Taunton, including Musgrove, Trinity, East Reach Hospital and Cheddon Road.

“I was expected to assist in any of those hospitals, but other than Musgrove they were really quiet places, and A&E (or Casualty as it was then!) at East Reach Hospital was particularly eerie at night. They’d even turn all the lights off at 1am because there was no one coming through – a completely different story to today, where it’s flat out 24/7!”

Steve’s career took him to the roles of senior porter and shift team leader, as well as a couple of years as accommodation manager, before he finished his career as our assistant facilities manager.

He says that throughout his time in the NHS, it’s the team work and comradery with fellow colleagues that has shone through the most.

“We’ve had so many great social days and nights, especially when the old social club was open on the site of our day surgery centre,” he chuckles. “We used to play skittles after work and went on regular fishing trips on a Saturday.

“Work has been so varied, and although it may sound like a bit of a cliché, you literally don’t know what you’re coming into most days in the jobs I’ve done – I’ve certainly enjoyed most of it.

“The funniest thing that’s happened to me during my time in the NHS has to be during a cold dark night, when we were called out to Trinity Hospital to take a patient from the hospital to Rose Cottage – a little stone building right in the corner of the grounds, which was really creepy.

“We had to go down there at 2am when the wind was blowing a gale, and we shuddered when we could hear voices down there – a tad worrying to say the least.

“My colleague shouted at them ‘if you don’t clear off, I’ll call the police’…and all we heard back was ‘we are the police, go away!’ It turned out that the police were in the grounds looking for someone, and that made me laugh for some time.

“We also found a hand grenade left over from the Second World War near Musgrove once…there have just been so many things that I could easily write a book!”

Steve says that although it feels good to be retiring, he’s still going to return on the staff bank as a general porter, where he’ll pick up shifts here and there. He also has a number of other irons in the fire, not least in the world of sport.

He continues: “I’m quite a keen cricket and football fan and I like supporting my local clubs, so I’ll do a bit of groundswork at Wembdon Cricket Club, such as cutting the grass and nothing too taxing, and I’ll likely do the same with Stogursey Football Club.

“I might do a bit more fishing again too, and who knows I may be tempted to buy myself another motorbike too!

“I’d like to wish my colleagues well and hopefully they’ll carry on and enjoy the rest of their careers too!”

Thank you for sharing your story, Steve, and we thank you for everything you’ve done at the trust and wish you a happy retirement…and we’ll keep an eye out for you around the corridors of MPH as you take on your staff bank portering role.