A nurse is ‘hanging up her shoes’ after 31 years at Bridport Community Hospital - and wants to thank everyone for their well wishes.

Fee Jeanes first started at the then Port Bredy Hospital in July 1989 and moved to Bridport Community Hospital when it was built in 1996 and Port Bredy shut down.

She said: “I have had hundreds of messages of love and support and good wishes for my next chapter in my life, but I simply can’t thank everyone personally.

“I guess I have nursed not hundreds but thousands of patients in Bridport and I have loved every minute of it. I have met and nursed some very special people.

“I have gone from manual handling, which of course is no longer authorised, to using modern hoists, stands and aids, from handwritten notes to all computerised - there has been so many changes.

“Bridport Community Hospital is such a special place, I’m going to miss them hugely, but if I don’t make this move now at this end of my career I may never.

“I have loved my time at Bridport, I have spent more than half my life time there from the age of 22, but now at 53 it’s time to hang those shoes up and find another pair.”

Fee, who also runs Fee Jeanes Ballet, is joining Coneygar Lodge care home where she worked one night a week 32 years ago before joining Bridport Community Hospital.

She added: “Fee Jeanes Ballet will still keep running, I have no plans in retiring yet. The school is as big as ever and Coneygar Lodge is supporting me in being able to keep everything running, which I am hugely grateful for.”