A quintet of Dunedin octogenarians celebrate a lifetime of friendship each time they meet up.
The five women - Mary Hossack, 88, Vera Grant, 87, Anne Ayson, 88, Winsome Larkins, 89, all of Dunedin, and Alna Henderson, 88, of Mosgiel, have known each other for 70 years and still have plenty to talk about.
They met when they began to study nursing in Dunedin, 70 years ago this month.
They had come from across Otago as young women in October 1954 to join a class of new nursing students based at the Dunedin Nursing Home in Cumberland St. The building is now Cumberland College, a University of Otago residential college.
While the women said they also talked to one another by phone in between, for the past decade they have been meeting in person monthly to swap photographs and stories from their nursing days and beyond.
"We’ve always known each other ... but there’s a few fallen off," she said.
As many of them as were able still met up at a local eatery each month. Yesterday it was the Cableways Tavern in Kaikorai Valley, for a meal and a natter.
Mrs Henderson brought with her a copy of the list of items they were required to have with them when they reported to the nursing school as new students in 1954.
Among other things, a man’s pocket watch and a fountain pen were needed, along with a pair of black "gymnasium bloomers".
The friends also passed around their 1955 class photo, which features a real human skeleton, named Mrs Chase (no-one can remember why it was named that) who was used to practise anatomy.
The curfew and rules the students once had to abide by were certainly more strict, Mrs Ayson recalled.
"We had to be in by 10 o’clock most nights - weren’t allowed any boys in our rooms, only at the front door.
"You had to work and then study, not like now when you go away and study then come back and nurse."
Mrs Larkins recollected having to clean hospital wards in ways that were almost certainly no longer applied.
"When we first went on to the ward in the morning, at six o’clock, we actually had tea leaves from the tea pot that we threw under the beds ... that collected the dust."
She had been particularly fond of the white cotton dresses and red capes they had worked in, she said.
The group, all widows, had "seen it all" over the many years they had known one another, and despite the longevity of their acquaintance were confident they would never run out of things to talk about, Mrs Grant said.
"... we’ll never run out of conversation, ever, ever, ever."
