大象传媒

I passed the St John's Ambulance certificate and joined the civil defence. They gave me a 1914 hearse with the base cleared and a metal framework with four stretchers and a canvas cover over all. We had a first aid bay containing a pair of small wooden slpints some triangler bandages and two tourniques. One had a strap of webbing with a wooden flat sided ball. The other was a length of rubber tubing with a metal clip at one end which we would have to put around a limb and pull it tight, thank God I never had to use it.
We had to go to the hospital and do the work of the porters, taking the patients to xray and other wards.
On the streets were oil drums with a little oil in them, when the alarm sounded they were fired covereing the town with a thick fog. At the alarm we set off through it with me holding the door open telling the driver if she wason the pavement or inthe middle of the road, trying to follow the yellow line for two miles.
When we got there it was like a Walt Disney scene the backs of the houses were on the floor making them look small. Everyone was carrying hurricane lamps the Indian soldiers were working there in their turbans.
We went to a church hall sign on for work and drank a cup of tea amoungst the dead lying there covered in blankets. Our first case was a head wound who we took to hospital. The next was a man, woman and child which we took to the undertakers and put into coffins, I had to sit in the back of the ambulance with them incase they fell out. They had a terrible smell,I can still smell it now.
Then we had the walking wounded to take to their homes. We called at a church where they were caring for an eight month old baby, they hadn't found her mother.
When we got back to the depot the telephone girl asked me what is was like, all I could say was there was a baby and then I had a fit of hysterics.
A bomb dropped about twenty yards away from my bungalow, the plane went on and dropped into the river. Some stones fell on the roof but we didn't worry and went back to bed, only to be woken by a steel-headed man looking through the window saying "If you two don't want to be blown up you had better shift", so we did! I was caring for seven baby pigs as the mother had turned on them we took them with us to ensure their survival. We ran down the road with my husband wheeling his bike andholding one side of a tea-chest containing the seven pigs. I was on the other side with a shopping bag, when opened contained my husbands best shirt and collarand a tin of castermilk for the pigs.
The army arrived to deal with the bomb which had gone down forty-five feet but hadn't exploded. The army left a soilder to work a pump all night to clear the water. He would shut off the pump and plug the petrol.
One day he came to me with a very nice brown blanket for 5 shillings. I bought it and made a coat. When I wore it to my mother's she asked me where I had got it from as the girl next door had just bought one like it for eighteen coupons!
It was discovered that when they went upstairs to get a casuality it was in danger of slipping off the strecher so they devised a plan and came to the depot to demonstrate it. I was put on the strecher and a triangular bandage placed accross my head, the ends twisted and tied to the frame. Then one accross my chest another on top of my legs and one around my legs the last one round my feet. The demonstrator stod the stretcher upright leaving my stomach behind, I wsa upright to prove how safe it was. The man came to inspect and took hold of the strecher, turned it upside down and marched aroundthe room with me yelling my head off!

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