Concerns over the future of Haslemere Hospital are, sadly, nothing new.

One striking example came on July 7, 1984, when around 250 men, women, and children – many dressed in oversized terry nappies and riding in shopping trolleys disguised as prams – paraded through Haslemere High Street to protest the threatened closure of the Princess Margaret Maternity Unit.

The event, organised by the Haslemere Maternity Action Group, captured public attention and dominated the front page of the Haslemere Herald on July 13.

But Haslemere mayor Cllr Eric Young refused to lead the march. Referencing the increasingly violent miners’ strike raging in the nation’s coalfields - the infamous Battle of Orgreave took place 19 days before the Haslemere protest - Cllr Young was keen to avoid trouble in the town.

At a Haslemere Town Council meeting the week before, he said: “There are more diplomatic ways to fight this than taking part in a street march like a pit head dispute.

“No council has done more to fight this closure but I don’t see why we should support this march just because we have been told to do so.

“If you want to go and watch people marching up and down the town’s streets you can, but I am not going.”

Jo Gurton, a member of the Haslemere Maternity Action Group committee, said: “I can’t help thinking that the councillors are a little out of touch with the people who elect them.”

There was no such lack of enthusiasm from those who did take part, including staff from the hospital in uniform, members of the hospital’s League of Friends, representatives of the National Childbirth Trust, and male members of the Haslemere Chamber of Trade and Commerce dressed as pregnant women and babies.

Some Haslemere-born children went back into nappies for a day to add their voices to the protest, and there were plenty of actual babies born in the unit in prams and pushchairs.

One wore a notice saying ‘Jamie, born at Haslemere June 83. What’s going to happen to all the other babies in a hurry?’.

Jamie’s mum, Heather Bicknell of Fernhurst, explained that their experience was exactly the kind of scenario which she felt showed how vital it was to keep the unit open.

She said she was on her way to St Luke’s Hospital in Guildford for the birth - as the Haslemere maternity unit was closed that summer - when a request for her to stop at Haslemere Hospital to pick up her medical records ended with Jamie being born there anyway.

Staff at Haslemere told Mrs Bicknell she did not have time to go any further. She said: “It’s a good job they did stop me, as I would never have reached Guildford.

“My husband was driving me there in his car, and after having to leave me at Haslemere, the car broke down on the journey back to Fernhurst - so I would probably have had Jamie in the broken-down car on the road to Guildford.

“There were four mothers that month who couldn’t make it as far as Guildford and had to have their babies in Haslemere, in spite of the unit being closed.”

The day before the march, new South West Surrey MP Virginia Bottomley - elected in a by-election on May 3 - met doctors, a community midwife, and representatives of the League of Friends, the National Childbirth Trust and the Haslemere Maternity Action Group to gauge local medical opinion on the proposed closure.

Mrs Bottomley was told that apart from “social and moral” reasons for keeping the unit open, it had an “outstanding obstetric record” and there were other “sound medical arguments” in favour of continuing obstetrics locally.

History is threatening to repeat itself after the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust decided to “pause” inpatient services at Haslemere Hospital on May 22 because of “operational and safety factors”.

Ultimately the protesters - like the striking miners mentioned by Cllr Young - saw their campaign end unsuccessfully in 1985. A new physiotherapy unit opened at the Princess Margaret Ward in 1990.