South Yorkshire Times January 17, 1959

Wants a Change

So Brampton Nurse Is Going to Australia

Because she wants to see the world and widen her nursing experience, Miss Catherine Ann (“Peggy”) Lyons (26), elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Martin Lyons, 12 Wynmoor Crescent, Brampton, is leaving for Australia. She will sail from Southampton next Thursday, January 22nd, and will be on the high seas, a passenger in the “Faifsea”, for the next five or six weeks. The ship will dock at Fremantle.

Miss Lyons has been nursing since leaving St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic School, Wath-on-Dearne, and will follow that career in Perth, Western Australia.

The journey will cost her only £10, as she has been allowed an assisted passage under a Government emigration scheme. The only qualification is that she remains in Australia for two years, although during that time she will be allowed to work in any part she chooses.

Miss Lyons has no job waiting for her in Perth, but has been in touch with the medical authorities there.

Starting her nursing career at Beckett Hospital, Barnsley, Miss Lyons qualified as a State Registered Nurse and worked at that same hospital for 12 months as a staff nurse. Four years after entering the profession she went to St. Mary’s Hospital, Armley, Leeds, to study first-part midwifery, and took the second part of the course at St. Helen’s Hospital, Barnsley, where, after qualifying as a State Certified Midwife, she is now employed as staff midwife.

Miss Lyons’ younger  sister, Bernadette, also a State Registered Nurse working at Barnsley, went to America in 1957 and Catherine intended following. However, Bernadette returned to this country less than 12 months later, so Catherine changed her plans.

Catherine says at present she has no intention of staying in Australia longer than the stipulated two years, but feels a change of environment, with experience in new hospitals, will give her a new outlook on life.

Travelling on the same ship, with similar plans, will be two of Catherine’s St. Helen’s nursing colleagues—Sister Helen Gooding, of Kendray, and staff midwife Anne McShane of Cudworth.