NHS 75th anniversary service at Cathedral to premiere local poet’s new work
The service will also mark 80 years since the US Army opened a hospital in Odstock
Salisbury Cathedral is hosting a special service to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the NHS and 80 years since a hospital was first opened in Odstock by the US Army.
The service will feature the newest work of Wiltshire Poet, Saili Katebe.
His latest piece, called ‘All the Faces’ explores how the faces in the hospital and community have changed over the last eight decades.
Saili said he’s excited to share his poem, saying reading it at the service will feel like an extension of the poem and what inspired its creation.
He said: “The ‘changing faces of the NHS’ is a sentence that I can connect to on a personal level as a first-generation immigrant whose mother came into the NHS from our homeland, Zambia. Looking at the history of Salisbury Hospital and listening to stories continues to lead me into exploring this conversation and shaping the poem.”
The poem was created through research into the hospital’s history and from interviews with staff from varying backgrounds.
Here is an excerpt of the poem, ‘All the Faces’:
There is a city within the city, a host
of cartographers reshaping the history
from the first flag to the last, we salute
the changing of the wards,
the winds of change
that have rearranged the odds
of finding a square footage of home
away from home in the halls of
Old Odstock. Time has tempered
the topography of this city's mouth,
The service at the Cathedral begins at 5:30pm and will include staff and volunteers from Salisbury District Hospital reading prayers, as well as new prose by playwright Paula B. Stanic.
Staff member Sandra Grihault will be one of the readers: “I’m honoured to support this celebration. It’s a great reminder of why we do what we do, how far we’ve come, and gives excitement around what we can achieve in the future.”