Black and white photograph of a young boy in uniform sitting at a table across from an adult male in a suit. The photograph is taken from behind the adult and so his face isn't shown. In front of the boy is a bowl of medical supplies. In the background there is a sign on the wall which reads St John Building Fund Appeal

Gill Tanner

Joined 1987

Willingdon Cadet Division, East Sussex

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Colour photograph showing a female Cadet standing in front of an ambulance emblazoned with ‘St John Ambulance Willingdon and Polegate Cadet Division’. The Cadet is wearing a white shirt with a black tie
Gill Tanner wearing sash of the Lord Lieutenant's Cadet of the Year, Sussex, 1995 Image courtesy of Gill Tanner
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Transcript

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So I remember doing friend to the D/deaf. I remember doing D/deaf awareness as part of my Grand Prior Award. So I always remember doing sign language. And that was when I first learnt sign language. Sadly, I don’t remember much of it now. But I do remember the alphabet, which is obviously something I’ve used going forwards. So that was probably when I was about nine, I would imagine. So this was later on in my Cadet life if that makes sense. I also remember the fact that we did a lot of stuff around medication administration and bed making. And we did those at the home nursing skills, that you might have heard referred to as yesteryear of St John. So the home-based version of what now the current care course is. So that’s obviously come back recently and it’s hospital-based. But yeah, we did about home nursing. So we did about how to move someone in a bed, how to do a bed bath. So of course, very apt with then going on for nursing. I’m not sure my Cadet friends liked it who weren’t planning to go on into nursing, etc. But anyway, we all did muck in.

Excerpt courtesy of Gill Tanner