The community medical care carried out at the Butterfield Hospital in Bourne was recognised in 1973 when the assistant matron, Sister Grace Ann Bristow, aged 62, was awarded the MBE in the New Year Honours List.

By then, Sister Bristow had become a well known and much loved figure in the town to which she devoted so much of her life in nursing care.

She was born into a farming family at Nocton, near Lincoln, on 14th December 1910 but chose a nursing career and began her training in 1932 at Rauceby Hospital near Sleaford where she qualified to become one of the first in Britain to have the title State Registered Mental Nurse. From Rauceby, she moved to Lincoln County Hospital for 18 months and then on to Grantham General Hospital in 1942 where she qualified as a State Registered Nurse.

Sister Bristow joined the Butterfield in July 1954 and remained there for 20 years, also working as voluntary lecturer and examiner for the Red Cross Society in the Bourne area.

A tribute to her work and warm praise for her MBE came from one of the hospital's former trustees, Bourne's recently retired general practitioner Dr John Galletly who said:

No one has done more towards making this hospital a model of its kind where without fuss, compassion and efficiency go hand in hand. She has built this hospital so firmly into the affections of the Bourne community and its encircling villages that when the regional hospital board thought evilly of closing it down, a wave of anger swept through the district. Few in the remote regions of control realise the work done by Sister Bristow and her team. There are some 300 casualties a month, the 13 beds are nearly always full with sometimes a stretcher on the floor. There are busy clinics held at the Butterfield where consultants from the big district hospitals come to see the patients of local doctors. A bad road accident, someone in pain or distress, the sister is there, efficient, calm and kind. No one has deserved the MBE more than Sister Bristow and we are all very proud of her.

Ironically, the hospital was closed 10 years later.

In October 1971, she was one of six local people interviewed by Franklin Englemann for the BBC radio programme Down Your Way which featured Bourne.

Sister Bristow retired from the Butterfield on 31st December 1974 after 43 years in the nursing profession. On Thursday 27th March the following year there was a public meeting at the Red Hall called to pay tribute to her work for the town when Lady Jane Willoughby presented a cheque for £540 15s. that had been raised by public subscription. Dr Galletly again spoke of her with high esteem when he said: "I have known Sister Bristow for 30 years and she has been a tower of strength to the town, making the Butterfield Hospital something we are all proud of."

Lady Jane was equally generous in her praise. "No one could be more sorry than my father and myself that my mother is not here", she said. [The countess had died tragically three weeks before.] "I know how much she enjoyed her conversations with you. You have devoted 20 years of time, thought and kindness to help others."

Sister Bristow, she said, was always prepared to be on duty night and day to comfort and help those who were ill or had been admitted as casualties. Local hospitals such as the Butterfield, she said, provided the kind of environment which helped people get better more quickly and it was essential that planners remembered this.

Senior and junior members of the Red Cross detachment in Bourne served tea and among those present were members of the Bourne detachment of the St John Ambulance Brigade.

Sister Bristow retired to live at 1 Stubbs Close, Dyke, where she was found dead in October 1987 after friends became concerned about her. She was 76.

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