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Staff and patients on the children's ward of Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, were recently treated to the sight of Junior Health Minister Edwina Currie reliving scenes of childhood past when she visited the hospital to open a new £8 million acute unit. Mrs Currie, famed for her pronouncements on the unhealthy eating habits of northerners, remarked on the fish and chip dinners being served up to mothers breast-feeding their new-born babies. She also picked up on an extract from a booklet on the history of Northallerton's hospital services, describing how Henry VIII closed the then hospital down and sold it off to pay for the construction of Christ College, Oxford. She later went on to attend a healthy food quiz at Sheffield's Royal Hallamshire Hospital, fielding questions from some 60 nurses and other staff.