A forgotten slice of history about the old Queen Elizabeth Hospital has been happily restored after languishing in the loft of a house for many years.

George and Margaret Weil, from Stirchley, have been the proud keepers of a piece of memorabilia dating back to the 1930s when work started on the QE.

They have been looking after the commemorative programme which marks the laying of the foundation stone for the old hospital, on 23 October 1934 - two years before it was officially opened by King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth.

The programme, which refers to the Birmingham Hospitals Centre, has now been presented to University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which plans to store it alongside other historic items.

Margaret Weil, was only eight when the foundation stone of the hospital was laid on 23 October 1934 by Edward, the then Prince of Wales.

It was four years before the hospital, designed with 840 bed spaces, was opened but it only became known as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital when it was officially opened by King George and Queen Elizabeth in March 1939.

Margaret, now 85, recalls: “When I was a child we used to live in Edgbaston and we were right next door to where the hospital was being built. I have a very clear memory of being with my brother and sitting on a bank and seeing the start of the hospital being built.

“One day when I was at school at St Peter’s CE Primary in Harborne, my mother, Leah, and older sister Gladys, wandered up to the hospital site to have a look and somehow managed to get a programme.

“I am from the generation that never threw anything away, so I have kept it ever since, although it has been in the loft for a long time.”

Margaret said the time had come to find a new home for the commemorative programme.

“George and I are getting older and only have one daughter, who lives in New Zealand, so we thought we would like to pass the programme on to the hospital,” she added.

The souvenir programme refers to the laying of the foundation stone of The Birmingham Hospitals Centre as well as the cutting of the first sod on the site of the equally new “Medical School Buildings” of the University of Birmingham.

The document said the scheme originated in 1920 when, following the end of the First World War, Birmingham aspired to be recognised as “one of the greatest hospital cities of the world”.

It said Birmingham was fortunate to have been gifted 150 acres for the scheme, with 100 acres reserved solely for hospital purposes.

And it praised the suitability of the site, adding that it was “practically free from all disturbing factors such as smoke, noise, dust, fumes etc, and its high and open position will ensure for patients an abundance of pure air and all available sunshine – important elements in the treatment of disease”.