"We went for an interview, and they immediately got up and said ‘here are your uniforms’," Mrs Wilson said.
Almost 11 years later, Mr Wilson (76) and Mrs Wilson (72) still turn out for a 2pm-6pm Tuesday shift in Dunedin hospital’s emergency department, doing whatever they can to help: making beds, putting together meals, offering tea, or simply being someone to talk to.
"It can be quite fun here; it’s not all doom and gloom," Mr Wilson said.
This week is National Volunteer Week, and it was good to take time to acknowledge the contribution of people like the Wilsons, team leader Sally Mason said.
"Volunteers that fit this job are hard to find, because you need to commit to one day a week for a decent amount of time," she said.
"A lot of people want to come in for a while because they think it’s exciting, but it’s a job and we want you to commit for at least a year ... you need a bit of life experience as well, although we look for a diverse range of volunteers."
A roster of 60 St John volunteers work at Dunedin hospital, with 40 rostered on at emergency, the sole department where volunteers work every day.
They really do not do it for the money — a $13 daily allowance, which many do not claim, is the sole recompense available.
The health system brought Mr and Mrs Wilson together: they met when Mr Wilson was a driver for the blood transfusion service and Mrs Wilson was helping to make meals for blood donors.
Having retired to Middlemarch after a farming career, they were looking for something to do and spotted a newspaper article about the volunteer programme.
While the couple have learned a lot in 11 years on the ward, they are not health professionals.
"People will often start tell you their medical history and say what do you think and you have go to be very careful and say I’m not qualified, you had better talk to the doctor or nurse about that," Mr Wilson said.
"You just try and be helpful, really. That’s the big thing.
"A lot of old people come in here and they’re terrified, they’ve never been here before, and they just want someone to talk to and to hold their hand."
A Tuesday afternoon shift means the Wilsons do not often see the drunk or impaired patients who can present to emergency, but they have seen their share of unpleasantness.
"We talk about it on the way home, and then that’s it," Mrs Wilson said.
"It probably helps that we can talk like that, because sometimes it can get quite sad here."
"People ask how you cope with the blood and gore but we don’t really see that," Mr Wilson said.
Working in emergency had given her a great appreciation of the professionalism of hospital staff, Mrs Wilson said.
"One day we were told they were expecting a multiple trauma accident to come in," she said.
"They asked us to keep making beds, which we did, and the staff worked like clockwork — they had obviously practised it, but to see it was so interesting to watch."
• Dunedin’s Servants Health Centre has won its section in the Minister of Health Volunteer Awards.
Servants, a Christian-based organisation which provides free healthcare to low-income people and those who do not normally access health services, won the service team category at the awards, announced in Wellington on Monday.
Servants has 45 volunteers including doctors, nurses, counsellors and support staff who together volunteer over 3800 hours a year.
