Grace Stephenson and Ethel Armstrong have both worked in nursing for the NHS, but they have a 68-year age gap.

While Ethel began her career as a cadet back in 1948, Grace started her training last year.

The women, aged 20 and 88, share their experiences of the NHS during a visit to County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

Image source, Terry Godwin

"I was admitted to hospital on the very first day of the NHS with eye trouble.

“I was 13-years-old and lived in White Oak Hospital in Swanley for six months.

“There were 12 of us on my ward and we lived a normal life, going to the hospital school and playing football on the field.

"The youngsters went to bed at 19:00 but because I was older, I could stay up until 19:45.

“One evening I decided to go scrumping in the orchards next to the hospital with my friend David.

"We filled three bags with apples and left one by each bed on our ward. I’d already eaten mine though.

"David threw the last apple across the corridor to his friend Toby, who was in another ward, but he dropped it and it went clomp, clomp, clomp on the floor.

"We thought we’d got lucky because there wasn’t a nurse around but as Toby went to pick it up a nurse came up behind him and caught him.

"The nurse went round the ward and saw the apples by the beds and made everyone apart from me stand facing bathroom wall for an hour as I was the only one without one.

“She said to me: "I’m so glad you’re a good boy Terry".

"She then stripped the 12 beds in the ward and told me to make them again.

"I may not have been caught but she knew I was guilty."

Image source, Geraldine Marchesi

“I was working on the orthopaedic ward at St Helier hospital in the early 1970s where there was a man on the ward who had a false eye.

"One day I was feeding him some mashed potato and the eye fell out of its socket.

“Oh dear” I said, but he hadn’t noticed at all.

“I went over to the sink to wash all the potato off the eye and accidentally put it into the socket backwards.

“When the ward sister came and saw the false eye and the man’s eye socket she rushed to the sink and was physically sick.

“The man’s eye soon came out again and I put it in the right way round this time.”

Image source, Alison Earl

“I was 18-months-old when I was diagnosed with a hole in my heart, external.

"Luckily, I was living near the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and got to have open heart surgery to repair it when I was six.

"It must have been pioneering surgery in those days and I think it was really quite amazing.

"The junior doctor slept on my bedroom floor the night after my operation so he could keep an eye on me.

"I woke up after my surgery to see shock on my mother's face because I was completely naked but this was done to keep me cool.

"I had rubber around my wrists and ankles to hold the wires in place to everything I was hooked up to. I imagine it was prehistoric compared to what happens nowadays.

"My time on the children’s ward before my operation was traumatic for me because hospitals were quite regimented places in those days.

"When I arrived my clothes were taken away and I was given a uniform. It was like having your identity taken away.

"The nurses put me in a cot and this was devastating because in my head I was a big girl. My parents were only allowed to see me during visiting hours too, so I just remember crying all the time.

"But then I was moved to the heart unit and it was like being at home because my parents could come in and see me at any time.

“My overriding feeling about the whole experience is one of absolute gratitude. I was born with a life threatening condition and the NHS gave me life.”

In 1948 the British government carried out an ambitious shake-up of post-war society, establishing the foundations of a welfare state.

A cornerstone of this new vision was the creation of the National Health Service, the NHS, providing free universal health care for everyone in the UK.

Olive Belfield, 91, tells Witness about working as a nurse and health visitor in the early days of the NHS.

Witness: The stories of our times told by the people who were there.

Image source, Jodie Scaddan

"My 14-month-old son Will should be severely brain damaged after going through major complications at birth.

"Instead he is shouting, playing and singing like most children his age.

"On 29 March 2017, I was in labour at Whittington Hospital in Highgate, London.

"I suffered a placental abruption, where the placenta separates from the uterus before the baby is born. I lost 3l (five pints) of blood and my baby stopping breathing.

“My husband Craig was initially told that both Will and I could die.

"The doctors found no heart rate for Will when he was born and he was intubated and given oxygen.

"The consultant managed to stabilise him after 38 minutes and then began a procedure to reduce his body temperature.

“He was transferred to University College Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit and placed in an induced coma. His little body was cooled down to 33C degrees to allow his brain to stabilise.

"After three days the medical staff began to gradually warm him back to normal temperature (37C) and waking him up.

"My husband and I held our breath. We weren’t sure how Will would react or if he'd be able to react at all. We’d been told to expect the worst.

"Our worries disappeared immediately though. Will started feeding straight away, holding our fingers and opening his eyes to look at us. A final MRI scan confirmed he’d come through everything without a scratch.

"People who say miracles don't happen only need to look at my son.

"The medical staff who worked on him that day not only gave him life; they saved him from severe brain damage and gave me an absolute dream of a child."

Image source, Lynette Peazer

"Back home in Guyana in the early 60s, times were tough and there were no jobs. I wanted to leave because there was a lack of opportunities.

"I met one my neighbour’s daughters in the street and she told me to go to the ministry of health because they were taking on people to do nursing in England, so I went along.

"I filled out an application and soon after I got my visa.

"When I arrived in the UK I met a lot of people from all over the Caribbean including Trinidad, and Jamaica, who had also come to train as nurses.

"I came in June 1965 and trained as a nurse in St David's hospital in Cardiff."

Much has changed on Scotland's hospital wards since 1948.

As the NHS turns 70 we speak to some retired nurses who shared their stories of how the job has evolved since they began their training.

Image source, Bill Ross

“I was in Sheffield Children’s Hospital with tuberculosis (TB) when the NHS was first created. I would’ve only been a few months old.

“After 18 months I was transferred to King Edward Hospital on the edge of the city, and I was there until I was seven.

“Visiting was only allowed on two Sunday’s each month and when parents did visit any sweets that had been brought in had to be handed to the nurses and were shared amongst all the children so no one missed out.

“The doctors and nurses were so concerned with how contagious TB was that my brother and sister could only visit once a year and weren’t allowed inside. I had to talk to them through an open window.

“I also remember being on the isolation ward and missing the Queen’s coronation because I couldn’t go on to the children’s ward and watch it on TV. That was a massive disappointment.

“Being in isolation was the one part of being in hospital that I found upsetting. I was kept in a cubicle that had glass walls so I could see the child in the next cubicle but I could only talk to them by shouting.

“Leaving the hospital after seven years was very strange. I’d no memory of being in a car before so watching the trees and buildings disappear into the distance as the taxi drove away was a whole new experience.

“I knew I had a brother and sister in a place I called home, but I didn’t know what home was either.

“I didn’t know what a vacuum cleaner was and I’d never seen a carpet before so home life was very odd too.

“We had very little schooling in hospital so I couldn’t read or write when I left. I was home tutored for 18 months so that I could catch up before I started school.”

Image source, Jayne Crook

"When I first started in mental health care in 1992 patients had no privacy.

“People stayed in dormitories and there were only partitions between beds so you could find yourself walking into five people’s bedrooms in one go.

"Nowadays patients have their own rooms with en-suite toilets.

“Meal times, toilet breaks and tea rounds were institutionalised or regimented too.

"People would get what they were given when it came to their breakfast, lunch or dinner. If somebody had trouble chewing their food, they would just be given the same dish but mushed up.

"Patients have far more choice now.

“We have a menu that’s designed by dietitians and patients pick what they want from a display board.

“If they don’t like what’s on the menu, they can choose something else. We then go and get the food from the supermarket.”

Jayne qualified as a mental health nurse in 2005. She is now a deputy manager at the North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare rehabilitation unit. She has worked in the NHS for 26 years.

Image source, Linda Terry

"My mum Margaret was working as a pharmacy assistant in West Yorkshire back in 1948 and remembers the first day of the NHS really well.

"In those days the tablets and mixtures were made to order for the each customer.

“Those who could afford a doctor would arrive with a prescription but other people would give my mum a recipe for their own remedy which was often handed down within the community.

"The pharmacist also sold packets of herbs to help people make up their own herbal remedies.

"On day one of the NHS, mum remembers the queue of people with prescriptions from the doctor stretching out beyond the front door of the shop.

"Before this people often put up with the conditions they had and just made do, but from that day on a whole range of treatments became available and the use of home-grown remedies started to decline.

"Manufacturers' products were not generally available on prescription and so in those early days the pharmacy became extremely busy making up tablets and mixtures by hand.

“Mum’s workload increased so much her employers gave her a pay rise."

Image source, Bernadette Stratton

"I remember a consultant once said something to a patient that the sister did not like.

"She banished him from the ward and he was not allowed to return without first apologising to both the patient and to her.

"America pays it's nurses more than in the UK but in England we got respect and I would rather have the respect."

Bernadette left the NHS in 1984 to work as a nurse in Virginia, US.

Nola Ishmael OBE came to Britain from Barbados in 1963 to be a nurse. Here she tells her story:

Image source, Brian Dungate

“Before the NHS a visit to the doctor would cost my father around eight shillings or the equivalent of two hours wages as he was a school caretaker.

"So apart from having emergency treatment for a head injury sustained during a World War Two bombing raid I had no experience of medical treatment until 1952 when I went in for surgery.

“I was at school one day and had sudden excruciating pain, it was so bad the school called an ambulance.

“I was quickly diagnosed with acute appendicitis, external and sent for surgery.

“I spent three nights at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

"The hospital ward was very basic consisting of just beds and chairs for visitors. There were no telephones, radios or TVs.

"But there was one item that would surprise most patients today, a piano.

"One of the ward nurses, Janet, would play the piano each evening.

“The first piece she played while I was in hospital was Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, it was very moving.

“Even though I was only there for a brief period of time, I left hospital not only in better health but inspired to learn music.

"Thanks to nurse Janet I learnt to play the church organ and still play today.”

To mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS we are sharing people's memories and stories of the health service from across the decades.

We'll be posting stories from patients and staff as they reflect on their time on wards, in hospitals or surgeries. We'll also be answering your questions about the service as it has evolved over the past 70 years.

If you have a story, picture or question you wish to share get in touch by emailing HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk.

Image source, Laurence Downey

"I worked in casualty at the Preston Royal Infirmary in the 1970s, it was a job I really enjoyed.

"As a junior doctor I’d have to deal with any medical problem that came through the hospital doors.

"You literally had no idea what you were going to be faced with.

“It was a huge responsibility. People’s lives depended on the decisions I was making.

"On a Saturday night casualty was usually packed. There would be people who had got into fights and those who had become unwell.

"I could be stitching a gash on someone’s face one minute and then an ambulance would arrive with a heart attack victim the next - I’d have to drop everything and treat them instead.”

“In the late 1970s I moved into general practice, that job was very different.

“It was a small village practice in Lancashire which was responsible for 5,000 patients.

“Some days I used to do around 20 house calls to see elderly patients who couldn’t make it to the surgery. For them I wasn’t just a doctor but a handyman too, I often changed light bulbs, got the coal in for the fire or fixed toilets.

“It wasn’t a bother it was just something you did back then.”

Image source, Gillian Moorse

"When I was around six-years-old I had my tonsils out. This would’ve been in the late 1950s.

"My family didn’t own a car at the time so a friend took me to the hospital.

"On the ward I felt caged like an animal lying in a bed with metal bars all around me.

"There were about 10 other beds similar to mine all lined up and they all contained children about the same age as me.

“I remember the operation and I can still recall a ghastly rubber smell as the mask was put over my nose and mouth.

“When it was all over, several hours later, I was given some jelly which at the time seemed like a real treat.

"I also remember being given hot milk at bedtime. I didn’t want my milk so a boy in the end bed climbed out, came over to me and then drank it.

"Visitors weren't allowed during my stay so I didn't see my family the whole time I was there.

"I think what I went through in hospital would be considered child cruelty nowadays but back then it just seemed normal practice."

Image source, Keith Emery

"I was due to be born at the end of June in 1948 but I was late arriving.

"My mother was having a home delivery and during the birth the midwife and GP attended.

"After I eventually arrived on 12 July the GP sent his usual bill.

"However, my mother replied to this payment request saying she didn't need to pay as we now had the NHS.

"She would have been charged if I was born on time but because I was late I was free!"

Image source, Clare Thomas

"I do remember lots of fun and laughter between patients and staff on the wards, but also some sad times too.

"I’d come across death in my training but one of my first poignant memories was of a teenage boy with bone cancer who I’d been caring for during my time in the home counties.

"I went on duty one morning and his bed was empty. He’d passed away in the night. I’d got to know him well and can still see his face to this day.

"There was another time when an elderly couple were involved in a car accident. The husband was in intensive care and on life support.

"The wife who’d only suffered minor injuries in the crash, naturally wanted to say goodbye to her husband when it became clear he wouldn’t recover. I took her to see him before they switched his machine off. This was a very sad experience for everyone involved.

"On a lighter note, I remember there being six patients in one particular bay. One was called Lloyd and another Cole. Whenever one of the six asked for a bedpan, the others would all want one too.

"In the end we nicknamed them Lloyd Cole and the Commotions which was the name of a band at the time, and it went down well with everyone on the ward."