Page 10 - QARANC Vol 14 No 6 2013

8 QARANC THE GAZETTE
H.M. Coroner Leicester City
& South Leicestershire
Mrs Catherine E. Mason LL.B; BSc HONS; RGN
I trained as a nurse in the NHS and worked on a male surgical ward at Kings Mill Hospital, Nottinghamshire before joining the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps in July 1990. My first posting was to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich as a Nursing Officer on the Burns and Plastics Unit where, with the exception of Gulf War 1 and a civilian secondment to undertake specialist nurse training, I spent most of my Army career.
During this time I was awarded the General Service Medal (Kuwait), qualified in Burns and Plastics nursing, undertook a Degree and attained the rank of Captain.
However, my Army career was forced to come to a premature end. As a result of a road traffic collision I was sadly medically discharged in August 1995.
I had a passion to become a coroner but knew I would not be able to with just nursing qualifications. Therefore, I decided to do a full time Law Degree so that I would have legal as well as medical knowledge.
I started my Law Degree at Leicester University in 1995 aged 27 years. Having completed this and attained a 2:1 with Honours Degree, I then undertook the one year Legal Practice Course at Nottingham Law School. This was followed by a 2 years training contract with Thompsons Solicitors.
Having qualified as a solicitor, I used my medical knowledge to specialise in
personal injury and clinical negligence cases. It was a role in which I became closely acquainted with Coroners’ Courts representing bereaved families.
As soon as I had the requisite 5 years post qualification experience as a solicitor, I approached the then Nottinghamshire Coroner and voiced my wishes to be a Coroner. He encouraged me to apply and appointed me as his Assistant Deputy Coroner. I then also became Assistant Deputy Coroner in Sheffield and Deputy Coroner in Derby and Chesterfield before being appointed Her Majesty’s Coroner for Leicester City and South Leicestershire in March 2009.
Being a Coroner enables me to become immersed in the combined issues of medicine and law to investigate deaths and give people factual answers when they are at their most vulnerable. I cannot change what has happened, but I am able to find answers and help people move forward.
There are many people who go home at night having done a hard day’s work but do not have job satisfaction. I have the satisfaction that I’ve helped people.
Murders, suicides and child tragedies are all in a week’s work for me as Coroner. It’s an unpredictable job which many might think as stomach churning but I dedicate myself to it.
I am an independent scrutinizer of deaths. I investigate sudden or unexplained death. This often leads to a formal inquest in court – a trying
process for the bereaved families.
I see my job, first and foremost, as doing right by the deceased and helping relatives to move on. I have the interests of the families at heart. I fight hard to do right by them and those who have died by helping to discover what caused their death and the
circumstances of their passing.
I ask questions that others shy away from and highlight shortcoming in practise. Some do not like this but I am the voice for those who no longer have a voice. My approach is one without fear or favour. When necessary I will speak out to highlight dangers and risks, for example, those associated
with drugs and alcohol.
Although I deal with harrowing cases
and distressed relatives, having a sense of perspective, a purpose and my family, help me. Every night when I go home and see my family I think how lucky I am.
Catherine E. Mason, H.M. Coroner Leicester City & South Leicestershire
Fundraising Lunch at Envals, South West France
After travelling around the world with my (ex RAMC) husband at the Army’s expense, we finally settled in Retirement in South Western France and bought an old schoolhouse to renovate.
We soon realised that with the end of the tourist season, the winters are long and quiet in the depths of the countryside (and surprisingly cold!). In particular, most of the restaurants close and it’s almost impossible to find anywhere to go for Sunday lunch. So with a large classroom, now a library, available to us and a husband who is a keen cook, the idea for ‘School Dinners’ was born.
Being founder members of SSAFA Forces Help France, we started to raise funds by holding occasional Sunday lunches during the winter. From this grew the idea of holding an annual curry lunch – it’s impossible to find a good curry here – to raise funds for the QARANC Association during
Remembrance Week.
The first time we did this, in November 2009, I was asked
by the Regimental Secretary if they could use the money raised towards a small Christmas gift for each QARANC personnel serving at Camp Bastion. We felt this was a wonderful proposition and have asked each year that the money raised be put to the same purpose.
The idea was enthusiastically received by our supporters from the expatriate community, many of whom were in the services; I’m often given nostalgic accounts of how well they were treated in the former military hospitals, though I have yet to come across anybody I actually nursed. So on 11 November 2012, 40 guests and 4 ‘kitchen staff’ all raised their glasses to the military nurses, to show our gratitude and support your service.
Liz Rolfe (nee Bridges)