Words from the Wards
Our brand-new home at Edinburgh Futures Institute is an ecosystem of learning, research and inspirational ideas about the future. But it has an even longer history as the place that birthed and healed the city when it was familiar to one and all as the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
To celebrate the rich history of this recycled hospital, we’re stitching together a collection of your stories of healing, prescribing, treating, and repairing. On this page you can read stories submitted so far and you can send us your own story at the link below. We’ll feature select authors and stories at a series of events during August, so keep checking back for more wonderful memories of this iconic Edinburgh building.
Find out more about how you can support our community projects which run year round thanks to your donations:
Explore Words from the Wards
Celebrating the city’s incredible history through your stories, Words from the Wards brings together memories, shared histories, thoughts, feelings and reactions to an iconic building and the incredible people who visited its wards and wings.
Jeff Kemp: Ghostwalk
26th April 2024Ward 12, worked here for years. south corridor, I’ve walked miles along it. Hundreds of night shifts. Habituated, I mean, got used to it I mean, probably cost the marriage but why speak of that. Ward 12 room 9. Mr Marner, I was young t...
Jeff Kemp: Bladder
26th April 2024A decade spent living there but it’s not surprising that I never learned that particular word. Translation is reckoned to be the changing of one language into another. Which is a truth which hides a larger question. “What does এম...
Joanna Craig: My Story
23rd April 2024I worked in Cardiology from 1969 until February 1973. My office was in the basement. Lots of cockroaches around, so bad our office was fumigated over a weekend. There was a camera club in the hospital and I often modelled for them. There...
Professor Stephen J Wigmore: Under the knife – William Henley a patient of Joseph Lister in 1873
23rd April 2024There is a time when one is waiting for something unpleasant where one has to give up control. Henley was approaching that moment. He was offered some lunch but could not stomach it. Slightly earlier than advertised, four men approached ...
Carol Brogan: The First Lesson
23rd April 2024In any other surroundings it would have been an unremarkable relic, a piece of furniture rendered invisible by age in a busy room: black leather with a worn sheen, creased and wrinkled, its heavy frame and bulbous wooden limbs layered wi...
SH: It All Turned Out Ok
23rd April 2024I had never been to visit a friend who had just given birth…why would I have? We were only just 16. A high-ceilinged room and a clean gown, she was ruddy from the long night of labour. Her infectious smile, ready to chatter about every...
Carl John Barber: Covid Nurse
17th April 2024Where would I be with out you your nightingales cry softening my own upon a bitter livid darkening day. In your white sheets I sail this choking sea where from my eyes rise up and you are there tired breathless yourself on those busy war...
Patricia Mitchell: First and Last Breaths
17th April 2024Like many Edinburgh residents, I took my first breath in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, in the Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavillion in March 1970. This building overlooked the Meadows, and I used to pass it regularly during my childhood. Eve...
Rab Bennetts, Co-Founder Bennetts Associates: Past memories: Future visions – changing the identity of an Edinburgh institution
16th April 2024The old Royal Infirmary now has an extremely significant place in my life and career, as I led the architectural team for its conversion into the University’s Futures Institute. It has been a thrilling experience. My first memories, th...
R T Wright: Old RIE
16th April 2024For 3 years in the 70’s I was in charge of the Royal Bank Branch inside the Infirmary. It was situated on the Main Surgical Corridor. It was a small space one larger room and a small interview room. There were 10 of us male and female wi...
Karen Michael: Just a memory.
16th April 2024Back in September 1978 I was pregnant with my first baby and attended all the antenatal clinics where you were taught how to bathe feed dress your baby ,and many friends were made . I was admitted with high blood pressure and had to get ...
Ali MacDougall: Its a gas
16th April 2024The hospital at night held infinitely more appeal for me. Most of the great institution’s staff were at home, sleeping off the toils of the day. The usually bright busy corridors with their gleaming black and white linoleum and lists o...
Kathleen MacDonald: Reunion: May 1980 PTS
16th April 202412 of May 1980, we started our course Do you remember that day as a scared student nurse? Young and naïve, thrilled to leave home Anxious, excited and a wee bit alone But soon we made friendships That have lasted for ever We’ve steere...
A.J.Hogg: A Male Nurse Starts – 50 years ago.
16th April 2024Ward 20 in the old Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, was a ward dealing with spinal and brain injuries. Nurse Rene Meredith (future wife) and myself ended up on this ward together, but we were I suppose about the same grades then, unlike som...
Iain Robertson: RIE MY FAMILIES HOSPITAL
16th April 2024My family was married to the rie everyone worked there the beautiful checkered floors the winding staircase, Dad did 40 years in instrument sterilisation, nan and grandad cook and porter, uncle microbiology lab,sisters nurse and medical ...
Louisa Russell: My memories of the Skin Department Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
16th April 2024I was born on the 12th October 1946 in Simpsons Memorial Maternity Pavillion. I attended the ERI Skin Department many times from infancy to my adult years. I had and still have Eczema. I remember with gratitude the kindness, help and car...
Stephen Barnaby: LAST OF THE (NOT SO) FUNNY-SHAPED HEADS AT THE SIMPSON
16th April 2024And don’t believe what you see on the telly Said the taxi driver As we sped to The Simpson All these beautiful perfect wee new-born babies They’re horrible looking things when they first come out All blue and purple And they’ve got funny...
Ellen Watters: The ghosts in the walls
16th April 2024My first job as a newly qualified Enrolled nurse in 1980 aged almost 20, was in female orthopaedics on night shift – 8 shifts on and 6 off. Ward 2, a Florence Nightingale ward – as most were then – where you turned the kitchen light on...
Evelyn Karlsberg: An Incident (at the Old Royal Infirmary)
9th April 2024Whatever you do, don’t look at the flannel I can’t catch you if you faint My husband looked up at me And my big belly And complied I knew he would keel over At the sight of his own blood. A bad cut on his head from ...
Jeff Kemp: Edinburgh Evening News (04/07/1904)
9th April 2024A fire in the hospital was contained but decimated microscopic specimens and caused havoc amongst cadavers, no laughing matter, a thousand quid’s worth of damage and traffic stilled, horses bridled, a crowd thrilled, some muttering...
Olivia Begbie: ERI
9th April 20241) Treading in their God’s footsteps They crush through the doors, White coats swinging Eager faces shining Adoring eyes gleaming. Hanging on his every word Like limpets on craggy rocks, Clinging in devotion Afraid of...
Jeff Kemp: Ghostwalk
9th April 2024Ward 12, worked here for years. south corridor, I’ve walked miles along it. Hundreds of night shifts. Habituated, I mean got used to it I mean, probably cost the marriage but why speak of that. Ward 12 room 9. Mr Marner, I was ...
Jane Murray: Royal Infirmary
9th April 2024Words and laughter, tears and hysterics chocs and Mint Imperials, and a banana. Neighbours range from citrus to butter Purples of various shades We smile and nod and generally give silent support. There is a look of a shared...
Dave Pickering: THE GIANT CHEF
9th April 2024Pad, pad, pad This corridor gets longer every time At least I’m getting my steps up I wonder when they’ll change those pictures They’re good – well, some of them But a change is as good as a rest? Pad, pad, pad S...
Nadini Sen: The Whale’s Stomach
9th April 2024I wonder how to name the hospital. It is inside a huge whale’s tummy in the North Sea. The mattresses were torn and old, gagged the gateway of the tummy. They all wore the red striped shirts and pyjamas, black boots and loose soc...