NOSTALGIA and sadness are naturally felt by the 337 members of the Worcester Royal Infirmary Nurses' League at the closure of the historic hospital at Castle Street.

The League, which celebrated its Golden Jubilee last year, is composed of serving and retired nurses who passed through the Royal Infirmary's Training School or were on the WRI nursing staff for at least 10 years.

Members not only live in and around Worcester but are spread across the country and also as far afield as New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Many of them eagerly converge on the Faithful City each May, for the League's annual reunion which involves a thanksgiving service, a social get-together and a collection for nursing and other charities.

The WRI Nurses' League was founded in 1951, by Miss Evelyn Healey, who was the Infirmary's Matron through the 1940s and 50s. The prime aims of the League were to keep nurses in touch with their Training School at the WRI, to maintain bonds between past and present students and trained nursing staff, and to come to the assistance of any member in need of help or comfort.

Sixteen people attended the formation meeting at Castle Street in 1951, but by the time of the first AGM there were 92 members, and during the half-century since, the average membership of the League has been around 300.

Miss Healey was succeeded as WRI Matron in 1959 by Miss May Hulme, who continued to promote and encourage the Nurses' League during her 14 years at the helm of the WRI nursing staff. Together with Sybil Joan Green, she wrote the words to a hymn, sung at the League's annual service ever since and set to a tune called Drakes Broughton by Sir Edward Elgar.

The Infirmary in Castle Street has always been the venue for the League's annual re-unions while its Jenny Lind Chapel - built with money raised at charity concerts by the legendary Swedish Nightingale - has always been the setting for the League's annual services of thanksgiving.

Last year's reunion was a very special occasion as it marked the 50th anniversary of the WRI Nurses' League. More than 200 members and guests attended the celebrations which were centred on a large marquee set up in the Infirmary grounds and decked out with gold balloons and roses. Members were agreed it was "a wonderful and memorable event".

However, the Golden Jubilee was also tinged with much nostalgia as members realised it would be the last reunion at the Royal Infirmary at Castle Street before its closure this spring after serving the Worcester area for more than 230 years.

This year's reunion in May is having to be held at Old St Martin's Church and Church Hall in the Cornmarket, Worcester. On Sunday, March 3, representatives of the League gathered sadly for the final service in the Infirmary's Jenny Lind Chapel before it was stripped of its internal fittings including an altar frontal and sanctuary lamp, past gifts from the Nurses' League.

I've been learning about the League from Gwyneth Biddle, its chairman of the past six years, and from its president, Marjorie Tarran, who was first a nurse at the Infirmary in the 1940s and later served for more than 20 years as clinical teacher at Castle Street and Ronkswood Hospital through the 1960s and 70s.

Mrs Biddle trained at the Infirmary in the 1960s and was a night sister at Ronkswood for 30 years, before becoming a WRI ward manager - a position she is retaining at the new Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

She fears that the Nurses' League, having contributed to the history of the Royal Infirmary, will eventually fade out of existence. Only about an eighth of its 337 members are serving nurses while the remainder are retired nurses, many of them now in old age. She points out too that the Infirmary's Nurse Training School, which was first at Castle Street and then at Ronkswood, closed in 1995.

"In the past, nurses trained together at the Infirmary and lived in, and this tended to foster a great deal of camaraderie. We were happy to join the Nurses' League and to meet up for reunions. Nowadays, however, nurses don't have to live in and attend their training courses at University College, Worcester. Quite a lot of them are married too," explains Mrs Biddle.

Collections made by the League annually have been donated to such organisations as the Acorns Children's Hospice, the Macmillan Nurses, the Hereford-Worcester Red Cross and the Worcester News and Equipment for the Blind Association.

In recent times, the League has been campaigning for the future preservation of the Jenny Lind Chapel and the Infirmary Board Room where Worcester physician Sir Charles Hastings founded the British Medical Association in 1832.

"Both are listed and, in view of their great historic significance, it would be a tragedy if they ever came to be demolished," stresses Mrs Biddle.

The League recently commissioned a painting of the Jenny Lind Chapel by local artist Nick Upton. A commemorative dish for the Nurses' League has also been commissioned from Royal Worcester Porcelain, and a Memorial Book too has been created to carry the names of League members who have died.

Gwyneth Biddle is full of praise for the support given her by the Nurses' League committee including secretary Jane Young, an Infirmary staff nurse, treasurer Margaret Fenn, for many years a WRI ward sister, and newsletter editor Miriam Harvey, a long-serving WRI theatre sister.