CAMPAIGNERS fighting to save Bicester’s Community Hospital have uncovered a special wartime tribute to one of the babies born there.
Hours after Rod Kemp was born in May 1940, his bomber pilot father Cyril Sydney, known as Bennie Kemp, flew over the Oxford Road hospital and tipped the plane’s wing in tribute.
Sadly, the following February, Mr Kemp’s father was shot down while on a mission out of Norfolk.
He said: “My mother told me he flew over the cottage hospital and did what they did in bombers and rolled his wings.”
The 69-year-old’s story is one of many that have been told after a campaign was launched calling for babies born at the then cottage hospital to add their weight to the community hospital protest.
Save Our Community Hospital campaigners want to get Bicester a hospital with in-patient beds rather than the Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust proposal for a primary care centre with hospital facilities, such as X-ray, minor injuries and therapies. Under that scheme beds would be ‘bought’ elsewhere in the town from other service providers.
More than 30 organisations have so far expressed an interest in redeveloping Bicester’s hospital.
The move comes after an advert was placed in a specialist magazine by Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust in January. The PCT expects to be in a position to award the contract next year.
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