Judy Taber

Canberra resident with memories of Acton
Interview: With husband Richard Taber, December 2013

“My name is Judy Taber. I came to Canberra on the 25th June 1958 to commence my general nursing training at the Canberra Community Hospital (that later became the Royal Canberra Hospital that was imploded). At that time all the nurses lived in for the four-year training period. A year after I arrived - when I started my obstetrics course - they were running out of beds, so they acquired what was called Bennett House, which was a pre-fab building. Bennett's House was opposite where the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies building is now on the Peninsula.

Because we were considered senior we were allowed to live there without being checked in or out. During that training we could only go out once a week, on your day off, and you had to be in by 10pm with a special dispensation until midnight if you wanted to go somewhere special - and you had to sign in and out and be accompanied back to your room because it would have been all locked up. Of the fifteen of the trainee nurses that started with me, twelve finished the four year course, and then of that there's about six or eight of us that still meet every year - we've been friends for fifty five years and its been wonderful. Richard and I met while I was working at the hospital.”