‘I love every minute’, says Nottingham hospital volunteer, 90

“It’s a wonderful feeling, I feel as if I’ve done a bit of good.”

Margaret Wildgust, who celebrated her 90th birthday in the summer, said working as a meet-and-greet volunteer at Nottingham’s City Hospital was “lovely”.

After 19 years in the role she said she knew “every nook and cranny” at the hospital and always enjoyed helping people to get their bearings.

Mrs Wildgust has just won the hospital trust’s Volunteer of the Year award and is also due to have a bus named after her.

“I was working in the supermarket but it got taken over and I needed to find a new job,” said Mrs Wildgust.

“I had been in hospital a few times and I’d seen the volunteers, so I said to my daughter ‘I’m going to do that’.”

She volunteers for two days a week, giving visitors directions or information.

“It makes me feel wonderful,” she said. “It’s a lovely feeling, I feel as if I have done a bit of good.

“I’ve got to 90 and I can still do something. People say I don’t look 90 but I do feel it sometimes.”

Despite celebrating her milestone birthday this summer with a living wake (“I wanted to see everyone before I popped off,” she joked), Mrs Wildgust still has no intention of slowing down.

“I love every minute of it,” she said. “When I come here, I come alive.

“You have to have a lot of empathy. I love it, I’ll keep coming as long as I’m able.”

While she gets a lift into work, as a long-term fan of bus travel, she makes her own way home.

Her loyalty is being rewarded with one of the buses which uses the number 17 route, which she previously used, being named after her.

She is also looking forward to the hospital’s mince pie party, an annual event at which her light-up Christmas jumper is a regular feature.

“People ask me about the flashing jumper, they say ‘Margaret, are you going to flash for us this year?’.”

But ultimately, her job is about the people who come to the hospital.

“It’s a people thing, I do like people. I have a bit of fun with them when they come in,” she said.

“If they have a long way to go I’ll just say something like ‘if you follow the yellow brick road…’ and that will make them smile – and that’s what it’s all about.”