A NURSE has retired after an amazing 65-year career that included looking after leprosy sufferers at the age of 13 and attending the world’s first heart transplant operation.

Baby Cox’s career in nursing has included some remarkable achievements.

Aged 13, she went to work in a missionary hospital in her native Swaziland, where she looked after 125 leprosy patients with the help of only one other nurse.

In 1967, she witnessed medical history when she attended the world’s first heart transplant in Cape Town with Dr Christiaan Barnard, from South Africa.

Mrs Cox, 77, moved to North Yorkshire in 1981, where she worked until recently.

She said: “It’s a long time.

“Nursing was the calling I got. I know nothing else. From the age of seven, I wanted to be a nurse.

“I used to steal my father’s red ink and paint it on bandages when I was little.”

Mrs Cox worked at the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, until 2001, for which she received a letter from then-Health Secretary Alan Milburn thanking her for long service.

She continued to care for people in their homes as an independent nurse, but in 2003 took up a post at Beechwood Care Home, at Romanby, Northallerton looking after elderly patients. By then, she had become an MBE.

Mrs Cox, from Castle Close, Northallerton, officially retired from the care home a few weeks ago, but has no intention of stopping working altogether.

She said: “There is a big question mark over whether I really am retired. I had been retired from Beechwood for four days when I got a call from the Red Cross asking me to look after a 94-year-old lady in her home and I said ‘yes, I’ll be there right away’.

“I do not think I will ever retire really. I would not be happy giving it up.”

Although her life has been devoted to nursing, Mrs Cox said that the one person she never had the chance to care for was her husband, Ronald Cox, who died suddenly seven years ago of heart failure.

Her former manager at Beechwood, Carol Hardy, said: “Despite suffering her own losses and living far away from her own family, Baby is one of the most loyal and hard-working people I have ever known.

“She would help out anytime or anywhere and take new staff under her wing.”

Mrs Cox thanked everyone who attended her retirement dinner on July 28.