A hospital worker who started at Central Middlesex Hospital as a 17-year-old apprentice has celebrated 40 years working at the Park Royal site.
Harlesden-born Anthony Marchetti, 58, joined the hospital, which is run by London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, after spotting an apprentice mechanical fitter vacancy at his local Job Centre. He had also been born at Central Middlesex Hospital in 1968.
Anthony said: “I had no idea what an apprentice mechanical fitter was but saw the hospital’s name and thought why not?”
He is now one of a handful of staff who worked at the hospital before its redevelopment and remembers crawling through the undercroft maintaining miles of old pipework.
Anthony said: “I remember once having to strip to my underpants and swim along a flooded duct to reach a valve I had to turn off. Health and safety wasn’t like it is nowadays.
“My least favourite job was having to crawl inside the boilers and clean them as part of their annual maintenance. That was a proper dirty job.”
Anthony, who now primarily looks after medical gas systems, said: “The time has flown by and I never felt the need to work anywhere else.”
