Last November one of three IHEEM Honorary Fellowships conferred at a ceremony in London went to ‘third generation’ member, Jeff Jackson, whose father and grandfather were also both members, his grandfather having joined the forerunner to today’s Institute just four years after its formation, and before the founding of the NHS. He tells the family’s story.
Last November’s IHEEM ‘Heritage, Innovation and The Membership Balance’ event at Westminster (HEJ – January 2018) saw three Honorary Fellowships conferred – one to a ‘third generation’ member of IHEEM, Jeff Jackson, whose father and grandfather were also both members, his grandfather having joined the forerunner to today’s Institute just four years after its formation, and before the founding of the NHS in 1948. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, recently met with him to find out more about his long-standing family connection with IHEEM, and the careers of all three family members.
Talking through with me the involvement of he, his father, Peter, and his grandfather, Albert (Ted) Jackson in IHEEM’s activities, and discussing their respective careers over a period spanning the NHS’s entire history when we met up recently at his home in Yateley in Hampshire, it soon became clear from the affection with which Jeff Jackson spoke about the profession that he believes being a hospital engineer is just as much of a vocation as being a surgeon, doctor, or nurse. He had, he said, been delighted and ‘pretty proud’ to be awarded an Honorary Fellowship of IHEEM last November (HEJ – January 2018) – ‘a nice recognition’ of he, his father, and his grandfather’s contribution both to the Institute’s activities over the years, and to the profession, and indeed wonders if there are many other IHEEM members who can lay claim to such a long-standing family involvement with the Institute.
While logically it makes sense to tell the story of three Jackson generations’ connections with IHEEM by beginning with his grandfather, Albert (‘Ted’), Jeff Jackson explained that he himself joined the NHS as an apprentice electrician in 1970, subsequently becoming a student member of the Institute of Hospital Engineers (membership number 2490) in July 1972. Spending much of his childhood living in hospital houses – his father Peter progressed up the ranks as a hospital engineer in locations including Derbyshire, Nottingham, Louth, Devizes, and Cardiff – Jeff soon became interested in following in his father and grandfather’s footsteps as a hospital engineer.
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