MELKSHAM dental nurse, Evelyn Kime, is showing no signs of slowing down to retire despite over 38 years in the job and recently celebrating her 70th birthday.
Since November last year, Evelyn has been working as a dental nurse at Melksham Dental Practice on Bank Street. Prior to this, she worked for 38 years at the Market Place Dental Clinic, where she became a familiar face to generations of Melksham families.
Speaking to Melksham News on the day of her 70th birthday earlier this month, Evelyn explained her passion for her career as dental nurse. “I love it, I love my job,” she said. “I absolutely adore it, I love working with people. Nobody likes going to the dentist, but if people are stressed, frightened or nervous it’s nice to be able to make them feel that its not quite an awful ordeal. It’s nice to put people at their ease.
“I started work at the Market Place Dental Clinic in Easter 1980. Originally I was a patient there and I got chatting to the dentist, Mr Holmes, and explained that I had worked in a dental practice before – during my school holidays when I was a teenager, I helped out a friend of my father’s. Sometime later Mr Holmes phoned me up and offered me a part-time job. So I worked for him for six months before he retired.
“Mr Holden then took over the practice and kept me on and I worked for him for 25 years. Then he left to be followed by a succession of dentists, including Bansari Lalan and Chetan Agrawal who I work with now at the Melksham Dental Practice.
“I loved the patients at the Market Place Dental Practice, I have known some of them since they were teenagers and they have grown up, had kids, and now have grandchildren. It’s quite scary, but it’s nice – I always see people I know when I’m shopping in the supermarket.”
Explaining the reason behind her move to the Melksham Dental Practice on Bank Street, Evelyn said, “Because I was coming up to 70, I did some reevaluating last year and I wasn’t quite sure whether I wanted to carry on working or retire, go part-time, or change careers.
“Then I heard Bansari and Chetan had bought this practice and that a nurse was leaving – so I asked if they would consider me. Working at a practice with just two dentists appealed to me. And some of the people who come here I know from the Market Place, so it’s nice to continue those relationships.”
About the future, Evelyn said, “I’m reasonably fit and healthy, I can’t see any reason to retire at the moment. I’m coping with the job and while I’m still capable I’m more than happy to keep doing it – I’d only sit at home twiddling my thumbs! I might go until my 40th year and then reevaluate!”
To celebrate Evelyn’s birthday, colleagues past and present threw her a surprise party. At the party she was reunited with former dentists Mr and Mrs Holden, who she worked with at the Market Place Dental Practice for 25 years.
Above: Evelyn Kime with colleagues past and present at her surprise 70th birthday party.
Left: Evelyn Kime (centre) with former dentists Mr and Mrs Holden who were dentists at the Market Place Dental Practice.
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