Florence Nightingale and the Atherstone connection 'to front' national Blue Poppy Appeal on bicentenary of pioneering nurse's birthday

CAMPAIGN LAUNCH FOR BENEVOLENT FUND TO SUPPORT FAMILIES OF FRONTLINE NHS STAFF AND CARERS WHO HAVE LOST THEIR LIVES TO CORONAVIRUS

ATHERSTONE is spearheading a campaign to use the name of the town's most famous "adopted" daughter to shine a permanent light of gratitude for the role of nurses and carers in the coronavirus fight.

Town councillor Angie Spencer has chosen today to announce her idea to launch a Florence Nightingale Benevolent Fund – on the bicentenary of her birthday.

The Atherstone Coffee Shop owner has asked North Warwickshire MP Craig Tracey if he can help with the development of a nationwide Blue Poppy Appeal with the proceeds going to families of frontline NHS workers who have lost their lives to Covid-19.

She began with a local 'shout out' to make blue poppies and was "staggered" with the response – when 900 came in.

Some 600 of those have been sewn into a giant net which now adorns the front of St Mary's Church in Atherstone – and will remain for the duration of the coronavirus crisis. The other 300 are going on sale from today.

But as the nation pays homage International Nurses Day to the 'Lady with the Lamp' – whose hygiene rules changed hospitals the world over and has such deep relevance to today's global battle with the pandemic – few outside of Atherstone realise the part played by the town in changing the course of the pioneering nurse's celebrated life.

Put simply, without the encouragement and financial support of Atherstone benefactors Charles and Selina Bracebridge there would likely have been no historic nightly patrols around wards of sick and wounded British soldiers during the Crimean War.

The Nightingale cause celebre that revolutionised nursing and saved countless lives would have been snuffed out before it began.

Councillor Spencer explains: "The Bracebridges funded her training and throughout the Crimean War.

"Without that money she would never have been able to achieve what she did.

"It was down to the Atherstone connection."

Her plan comes as the nation is being asked tonight to shine a light from their windows as a symbolic gesture to nurses and seen as a nod to the lamp which Florence Nightingale was known to carry.

Another Atherstone town councillor, Dawn Downes, take up the story of the Bracebridges and Ms Nightingale who was born on May 12, 1820.

Cllr Downes, a theatre practitioner at the George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton, said Florence's parents were vehemently opposed to her becoming a nurse – seeing the vocation as "beneath her".

"Her father was particularly disappointed that she wanted to take this route after all he had taught her," said Cllr Downes.

She added: "Florence would not and did not give in. She began to secretly study what were called Blue Books, dealing with public health.

"This would lay the foundation of the vast and detailed knowledge of sanitary conditions, which was to make her the first expert in Europe in infection control."

In the autumn of 1846 she met the Bracebridges of Atherstone who befriended her. They helped her both financially and were often the "source of ideas".

The Bracebridges supported her aspirations, and took Nightingale on her first trip to the Deaconess Institute at Kaiserwerth where she later studied nursing.

During the Crimean War (1854-56) they visited her in the hospitals behind the front line.

Cllr Downes added: "Florence writes many thoughtful correspondences to the Bracebridges. And how proud Atherstone should feel that our little town's source of ideas may have been used in one of the greatest professions of all time."

After the Crimean War ended, the Bracebridges threw a huge 'welcome back' party for the nurse who won the hearts of a grateful nation.

Atherstone's population got the day off work and the event was attended by Nightingale's elder sister Lady Parthenope.

The road used for the celebration was later purchased by Mr Bracebridge who named it 'Welcome Street'.

On the Bracebridges' deaths, Nightingale described them as the "creator of my life . . . more than early father and mother to me".

Cllr Downes says it makes her proud to an Atherstonian, "in the knowledge that our little town changed a life that changed so many others and still continues today".

Professor Greta Westwood, CEO of the Florence Nightingale Foundation, said: "Florence Nightingale, herself a trailblazer during her career, would have been proud at the way nurses have followed in her footsteps as pioneers and leaders in the fight against the pandemic.

"They are truly her legacy today."

Certainly she has not been forgotten in Atherstone – with Florence Close named after her in addition to the original 'Welcome Street'.

Across the world there are statutes to the pioneer nurse as far afield as Los Angeles and Francisco in the US, Andhra Pradesh in India and in Kawanishi in Japan.

Nearer to home, there's one as part of the Guards Crimean War Memorial in London, although controversially there is no statue of her at St Thomas's Hospital where she set up her nurse training school.

There are three to be found in Derby where she spent many of her 90 years living at Lea Hurst near Matlock and often returned to her family home whenever she could.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, plans were nearing completion for the commissioning of a new piece of artwork by the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust at the entrance to the London Road Community Hospital, off Oxford Street.

More recently she was honoured through the naming of all the emergency coronavirus-fighting hospitals across the UK after her.

Meanwhile, to mark both her birth and International Nurses Day, people across the nation are being encouraged to shine a light from their windows in recognition of the role of nurses in the coronavirus fight, which has been described as the "greatest health emergency in NHS history".

The symbolic gesture at 8.30pm will be a nod to the lamp which Ms Nightingale – a founder of modern nursing – was known to carry.

The famous nurse's image and a message of thanks will be projected from Parliament on to her place of work, St Thomas's Hospital, while similar projections will happen at the British Embassy in Rome and the Italian Federation of Nurses.

Thousands of former nurses have come out of retirement to help the health service deal with the coronavirus outbreak and thousands of students are also helping by working in extended clinical placements.

England's chief nursing officer Ruth May said public support shown so far has "buoyed" colleagues during what she said is a testing time, and she urged people to once again show their gratitude by shining a light from their homes on Tuesday night.

Unmarried, despite a number of high-profile proposals, Nightingale spent much of her adult life at 10 South Street, Mayfair where she died in 1910 at the age of 90. She is buried at St Margaret's Church, East Wellow, Hampshire.

With the muted celebrations due to Covid-19, later in the year a stained-glass window in Hampshire's 900-year-old Romsey Abbey is to be installed depicting the moment of her "vocational calling" when a teenager at her family home in Embley Park, Hampshire.

Footnote: To find out how to purchase a poppy, call Cllr Spencer on 07974 302910.