SO from here on in you can address me as President Clinton (the other one isn’t any more!).

I am very proud to say that the League of Friends of Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton have asked me to become their president.

Mind you, I have to say that following in the footsteps of former accident and emergency consultant Dr Chris Cutting will be almost impossible. 

He is a truly great man and I’m told he was the very first ‘casualty consultant’ to be appointed at Musgrove back in the early 70s. Was there a world before consultants?!

Life is full of strange coincidences isn’t it? I was reading through some old newspaper cuttings of mine the other day and came across one from the Bristol Evening Post (I worked there for four years) dated February 1, 1979.

The headline read: “Frilly Hat Brigade Fight Back.” It was a story about a certain full-time union officer (best I don’t name him) who described volunteer hospital workers as “glory-seeking parasites” who “did little else but arrange flowers and serve endless cups of tea”.

He then went on to dub them “the frilly hat brigade”. Ouch!

Now that certainly doesn’t square with the view of the current chairman of the hospital trust in Taunton, Colin Drummond, who in a letter thanking Dr Cutting for his many years of service to the hospital and the League of Friends spoke of how volunteers in many sectors of the NHS help sustain the service as we know it today.

Volunteers are invaluable. And as those organisations whose job it is to provide services for us increasingly struggle to do just that (look at the terrible mess Somerset Council finds itself in now) those volunteers become ever more crucial.

Somerset County Gazette: Musgrove Park's £1.5 million 'MUSBOT'.Musgrove Park's £1.5 million 'MUSBOT'.

The League of Friends of Musgrove Park Hospital recently raised £1.5 million for a revolutionary surgical robot. It’s provided equipment worth £8 million in the past 60 years. Amazing what frilly hats can do!

The Somerset Lieutenancy (I was appointed a deputy lieutenant two years ago) has the responsibility of co-ordinating the King’s Award for Voluntary Service.

Equivalent to an MBE for individuals, KAVS is the highest award given to voluntary groups in the UK, celebrating outstanding work done by charities.

Recently four brilliant charities in Somerset were given the honour and the Lieutenancy is always on the lookout for other charities worthy of recognition.

The voluntary sector in Somerset is thriving – some would say it has to!

Back to Musgrove Park Hospital, the hospital shop is run almost entirely by volunteers – about 100 of them – and it raises good money every year for the League of Friends.

Somehow I cannot imagine today’s union leaders criticising volunteers in the NHS – not unless they want to end up in a hospital ward in Musgrove!

And I for one am proud to don my frilly hat.