Looking back: Peterborough hospital staff in 80s pay protest reunited

Left to right in original photo: Rick Long with NUPE (National Union of Public Employees) sign; student nurse Claire Dunn (nee Wooden) holding a NALGO (National Association of Local Government Officers) sign; Tony Marsh (behind her in tie and white coat); staff nurse Jane Murphy (nee Rainer); Chris Phillips (behind her); Jock (the man clapping) was a local resident who just joined in; Nurse Tam Anderson (with beard end right).

Rick Long, Jane Murphy, Tony Marsh and Chris Phillips returned for the reunion photo in 2021. Claire was not available as she moved to County Durham and Jock and Tam have since died.

Rick worked as an X-Ray porter at Peterborough District Hospitaland then an operating department practitioner until September 2008 when he had a bad crash during a sidecar race.

Rick became the British and European F1 sidecar champion but he lost his leg in a 145mph crash in 2008 at the legendary Hockenheim racetrack in Germany, that killed his friend and driver Steve Norbury.

Remarkably Rick soon returned to the gym after his accident and became a fitness instructor and personal trainer at One Life leisure centre in Bourne in 2015, for able bodied and disabled people.

Jane worked as a sister in the orthopaedic theatres until 1995. She met her husband, Chris at the hospital in December 1982 and they are still together. Jane, who has two children, left PDH in 1995 and became a practice nurse at Boroughbury Medical Centre until 2020 when she retired.

Reflecting on that day, Jane said: “I was proud to be protesting along with my colleagues for better wages for all NHS staff as I believed we were all worth so much more than we were getting.”

Tony got his first job at Peterborough District Hospital in 1981.

He retired in 2019 after 38 years as a radiographer.

Chris started working at PDH in 1975 and retired in 2016.

She was a state-enrolled nurse, then a staff nurse, then worked in the diagnostic imaging department.