The Prince of Wales opened a new #16 million hospital for ex-servicemen and women yesterday, praising the efforts of everyone who made the project a reality.
Speaking at Erskine Hospital, near Glasgow, he said he was delighted by the project which had produced a state-of-the-art facility for more than 700 residents and staff and replaced the old facilities located just 400 yards away.
Charles, who is patron of the hospital, took a keen interest in its design and planning.
He toured the facility, chatting to veterans and staff and even took part in a game of bingo in the activities room.
The prince later unveiled a stone plaque to commemorate the opening of the new hospital and was introduced to pensioner Mollie Craig, whose jams and pickles have raised #53,000 for the hospital.
Twice-widowed Mrs Craig, 82, of Gourock, said she was delighted to have been able to play a part in maintaining the work of the hospital.
''Prince Charles asked me about the work I'd done and he was very pleasant.
''I just told him that I helped raise the money through sales of work and other things like that.''
Asked if she had offered the Prince any of her preserve, she laughed: ''No, no, that wouldn't be the done thing and I'd maybe have to charge him.''
The original Erskine Hospital opened in 1916 to help cope with a flood of casualties from the First World War.
The new buildings provide accommodation very different from the original shared wards and each of the 180 residents now has a room of their own with en suite facilities.
Lieutenant General Sir John MacMillan, chairman of the Erskine Hospital, said: ''For eight decades the hospital has been a constantly developing organism.
''Inevitably the time came for us to build a modern, state of the art facility to meet the highly advanced health care needs and nursing home regulations of the new millennium.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article