On 20th June the Mercury ran a story on local community worker Zillah Driver MBE who ran the Hertford County Hospital tea bar for 20 years.
Mrs Driver, from Cowper Crescent, first became involved with the tea bar through the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service and became manager in 1983. Over the following 20 years the tea bar made around £65,000, which was put toward hospital equipment, a relative’s rest room and the former hospital nurses’ home.
In addition to managing the tea bar, Mrs Driver was also instrumental in setting up the relative’s rest room. “There was nowhere in the hospital for relatives of sick people to rest or for visitors to talk to someone if the person they were seeing in the hospital had died”. After continuing to press for a dedicated room the manager finally allowed one to be set up.
Mrs Driver asked Marks and Spencers for sponsorship, who responded with £250 in vouchers, and they were able to set up a room with a two-bed settee, armchairs, duvets, sheets, pillows and curtains.
The tea bar is still run by the WRVS, although with a paid manager, and Mrs Driver was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 for services to the community including her hospital work.
To see the full story from the Mercury please click here.