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MARGARET STREET (nee Bright)
ROYAL AUSTRALIAN ARMY NURSING SERVICE

Margaret was brought up in Victoria, Australia and had a step-brother and step-sister, as her father married twice. Life was good ~ it was easy and comfortable.

I trained to be a nurse for three years, in Victoria, in 1940, then worked in private hospitals. I worked in the army hospital in Melbourne, the military college at Duntroon, then in 1948 was sent back to the base hospital in Victoria. I dealt with soldiers who were sent back home to recover. They would come by boat and then ambulance. There were a mixture of accidents, but a lot had been ‘fixed up’ before they were sent back.

Conditions were fine ~ the matron saw that everything was very clean. It was shift work on the wards. I was a sister, as you automatically became one in Australia as soon as you qualified. She remembers Darwin being bombed. My uniform was a grey suit with shirt and brown tie; a grey hat with a coloured band round; a grey dress with Australian buttons, white collar and cuffs and a white veil. We also wore red capes.

I had my name down for the army and in 1949 was called up and sent to Japan during the occupation. It took two to three weeks by boat. Conditions on the boat were OK and I wasn’t sea sick! I was based on an island and then when they were ‘winding down’ I moved to Kure on the main island. We were all Australians and lived in the hospital, but had Japanese staff for washing clothes and cleaning rooms. We weren’t allowed to fraternise with them.

We would go on leave in a group every six to eight weeks to different places where there were YWCA hostels and would meet up with others . Otherwise when not working we played tennis and sometimes would go on a launch to various places and have picnics. There were occasional dances in the mess, but no concerts. I worked in the RAANS for two years.

A year later Margaret came to England and nursed in private nursing homes and as a personal nurse to a Scottish gentleman. After a brief spell back in Australia she returned and met her husband when she was the nurse and he was the chaplain at a boarding school in Abbingdon in Berkshire. He was ordained but preferred to work with young people, especially delinquent youths, and ran various clubs for them ~ one in London, one in Northern Ireland and one in Hartlepool. When he retired they came to live in Barnard Castle because it was a nice place with good fishing!

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