Jacquelin trained at Barnsley School of Nursing and began her career at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary working in male orthopaedics.
Emma remembers calling her on late shifts to say goodnight and laughing at her strange medical stories. But after a sudden stroke in 2006, Jacquelin retired aged 47.
“Mum has got slightly rose-tinted glasses and when she says she misses nursing, I sometimes think if she was nursing now, compared to how she was nursing 20 years ago, would she actually miss it?
“There is a lot more paperwork than hands-on care and the computers and all that jazz. I do sometimes wonder if she would have found that a challenge, but who knows?,” says Emma.
After leaving school in Huddersfield, Emma studied History at university but graduated with no idea of what she would go on to do.
When she first told her mum and grandma she was thinking of becoming a midwife they thought it was “hilarious”, she says.
“I’m really squeamish. I can’t do bones. I can’t do wounds. I can’t do anything like that. So when I said I was going to do my midwifery, everyone thought it was hilarious and laughed at me,” she says.
“But it sort of fascinated me, the whole sort of conception and birth thing and a human growing another human and then it comes out of the human and it just blew my mind a bit and it still does. And I think when it stops blowing my mind, then I’ll change my job.”
And the healthcare gene continues to run in the family, with Emma encouraging her 12-year-old son, Amos, into a career in physiotherapy.
“He would love to be a footballer. But I like to give them realistic expectations,” she says.
“I’ve talked to him a lot about maybe going into physiotherapy or occupational health, things like that, just to kind of keep that involvement – so kind of planting those seeds a little bit.”
