大象传媒

Much has been said and written about the invaluable contribution made by the Voluntary Aid Detachments in war-time, and rightly so, but little about the role of Matrons, Ward Sisters, Staff Nurses and Probationer nurses during those years. The latter were the larger part of the work force and without whom the hospitals could not have functioned. It is right to point out that Miss Joyce Burton, who trained at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, as Matron of Coventry Hospital during the heavy bombing and devastation was awarded the George Cross by King GeorgeV1.

There were 20 of us in the Preliminary Training School at Mile End Hospital, East London in September 1943. After 8 weeks of class room instruction we were allocated to wards where there was no natural light, the windows having been bricked up after the Blitz of 1941. Mile End was a Local Authority hospital run by the London County Council. A short distance away in Whitechapel was the large Voluntary London Hospital. These two systems or sections ran side by side and we were all part of the Emergency Medical Service. At Mile End the wards were large and always full. Hours were long but we did have one day off a week which was generous in those days. As was the salary of 10 shillings weekly.

For inner city hospitals there was a hospital on the periphery to which patients and probationers could be sent in an emergency, or routinely to ease the bed shortages. These hospitals were usually for the mentally ill or insane as then referred to, and in large early or mid Victorian buildings.

In January 1944 a number of us, with our patients, were transferred to the Northern Hospital, Winchmore Hill in converted Green-line buses. Part of the hospital was used for the original patients. Each block had 3 or 4 wards of 30 patients in each, so one was always busy especially as the'junior'. Patients were a mixture of civilians and service personnel, some of whom had been wounded during the North African and Italian campaigns. One such was Paddy, an Irish Guardsman, who had a compound fracture which would not heal. The Staff Nurse called me one day to watch her dress this wound. She applied a colourless solution, penicillin, the first time it had been issued to a civilian hospital. Within a short time the wound had healed.

D-Day June 1944 was followed by the advent of the V1's or Doodle Bugs. These unmanned missiles had very noisy engines, when these cut out the missile dropped causing much loss of life, injuries and devastation.

January 1945 and it was back to Mile End. There were the V2's, rockets sent over as a last desperate ploy to contend with. However we had hopes that the war would soon end.

V.E. Day on May 8th came at last and we were allowed onto the flat roof of the nurses home to watch the lights go on all over London. Just to the west the dome of St Paul's was then clearly visible. As dusk fell two searchlights came on meeting at the golden cross, a sight I shall never forget.

My colleagues in Norwich would have had similar experiences. Many of us, as trained and senior nurses, helped to get the National Health Service up and running in 1948, working within it until our retirements. A few of us are still surviving.

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