Skip to content

Tributes paid to nurse who served 50 years

Family Beverley Pedley, stood in what appears to be a garden, with a stethoscope around her neck and a blue gilet and floral blouse.Family
Family Beverley Pedley, in a white dress and black cape with red lining, is stood next to a large stone building which appears to be a hospital.Family
Beverley Pedley returned to nursing during the pandemic, having retired in 2019
Ms Pedley first trained to be a nurse in the 1970s

Tributes have been paid to a nurse who worked in the NHS for more than 50 years.

Beverley Pedley, who started as a cadet at the age of 15, at Standon Orthopaedic Hospital in Staffordshire, died last month aged 69.

She began her training in 1971, qualifying as a nurse at Stafford Hospital in 1973, and then worked in intensive care for about 30 years.

Ms Pedley moved from Stafford to Telford in the mid 1990s. A service at Telford Crematorium saw her former colleagues pay tribute with an honour guard around her coffin.

Her son Adam Hodson said it had been a "lovely" but "obviously sad" day.

"A lot of her friends and family were regaling me about tales from the wards and tales from their time in hospital with her," he said.

"It was amazing. It was really humbling to hear all these stories about mum that I'd never heard before."

Mr Hodson said his mother retired in 2019 to care for his father when he contracted cancer, but when the pandemic hit she returned to care for patients in hospitals again.

"Mum just felt a pull, a calling back, she just felt that she had to go back and help," he said.

He said he had distinct memories from when he was younger, of his mum's books on the dining room table as she studied to become a senior nurse practitioner.

"We'd spend time just going through things and reading up on medical stuff – it was quite pleasant to be fair."

Beautifully poignant

Mr Hodson, now a medical negligence lawyer and a part-time coroner, said his mother's influence had "definitely rubbed off" on him.

She went on to join one of the firms he used to work at – working on medical details while he dealt with the legal side of things.

"She was very proud of me when I got the coroner's job," he said.

He added the service was packed with more than 100 well-wishers, along with some attending remotely from New Zealand and Tokyo.

Among those paying tribute, about 40 of Ms Pedley's former colleagues formed an honour guard, known as a nightingale honour guard, around her coffin during the service.

Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.