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I started training as a nurse at a fever (infectious diseases) Hospital, in South East London in July 1940. The wards were the ‘Florence Nightingale’ type; large light and airy. The only concession then to possible air-raids, was that each ward had a reinforced corridor or ‘Cover Point’, as did the nurses home.
The black-out was very poor and had to be replaced once the night raids started. Soon after the heavy day raids, work commenced on building up the lower half of the windows and balconies on the ground floor wards. The recently built isolation wards had been closed for the duration, as they were mainly built of glass.
In August, the hospital was bombed and machine-gunned several times. Once, whilst being dive bombed, Matron's house was destroyed. She was very lucky having just left it. The memory of that day still lingers yet.
The hospital had no air-raid shelters for patients or staff. The patients, (being infectious) could not have used them anyway; even those well enough to be moved. During raids, their beds were pulled to the wall space between the windows and cots covered with spare mattresses. Off duty nurses slept in the passage ways beneath the main corridor, where the main pipes carrying the gas, electricity, water, and steam pipes were situated. One shudders now to think what could have happened, but then we felt reasonably safe and once used to the situation, we slept well. We could feel the strong reverberation of the Ack-Ack Guns as we were partly below ground level.
Several wards and our class room, were destroyed by direct hits, but naturally work went on and luckily casualties were light. With the classroom gone, our lectures took place wherever and whenever possible. Due to blast damage, they were rarely in the same room twice. Despite everything, - it is on record - that none of our group failed our preliminary exam taken at the end of our first year.
When we were eighteen, we were put on the Fire Watching Rota, and were thrilled, if a little nervous, to don a tin hat and climb to the roof for our stint.
Food was good if monotonous. As in all institutions, we knew the menus for the week, by heart. Our sugar and butter rations, less a small portion for cooking were doled out at each Monday 'mid morning break. We carried our containers to all meals. Those who did not take sugar became exceedingly popular.
Most L.C.C. Hospitals in those days, had a high proportion of girls from Southern Ireland, (excellent nurses too), and since they had food parcels and went home on holiday to where they didn't have any rationing, they were very popular. They would have been anyway, for they were so gentle and friendly. We also had a number of German/Jewish girls who had reached England before the War.
We were, of course, provided with our uniform but black shoes and stockings had to come out of our own pay and coupons. Shortage of coupons and low salaries, twenty five pounds a year in the Fever hospitals and fifteen in the General for a first year nurse meant that 'mufti' clothing was in short supply. It did not matter too much, since we were all in the same boat and friends were happy to lend clothes for a special occasion.
As far as I was concerned, night duty was a joy. I couldn't feel quite as scared in an air raid with the patients to care for and reassure. Not that the children needed much reassurance, they seem to take the noise of planes, bombs and guns in their stride.
One memory I have, is of standing on the upstairs balcony during a night raid, - strictly forbidden of course - and watching London burn in the December raids of 1940
In January 1943, the callous and cowardly daylight raid on Sandhurst Road School took place. The children were machine gunned and the school bombed. Of course there were heavy casualties. As we were situated only half a mile away, we too had a bomb drop near us, shattering windows damaging one ward and injuring several patients. Luckily none too seriously. Since there had been no alert and it was 1pm, the beds were not protected in any way. Again, the pilot knew what he was bombing, since the nurses could be seen quite clearly as they made their way along the open corridor to lunch.
When the ‘Blitz’ ended, our curfew was relaxed and we allowed to go out after duty until 10pm. Previously we had been confined to barracks from 5pm onwards. Many of us went ‘up west’ dancing, despite the black-out and the numbers of soldiers both British and foreign. None of us were troubled by unwelcome attention. The worst that happened was that one Irish girl was threatened by a prostitute for standing, - whilst waiting for a friend - on her beat.
Because my home was quite near, I went there for my days off. It wasn't always peaceful since we were outside the balloon barrage and quite near to Biggin Hill. Since my mother was also nursing - though not resident. I often queued for her rations and any other un-rationed food that was on sale. I had a greater awareness of the difficulties of living outside an establishment than some of my colleagues.
We were so lucky, never short of food, warmth or water, as happened outside. The hospital had it's own Artesian well and when local mains were bombed, people queued at a standpipe in our grounds with kettles and buckets.
After completing my fever training, I moved in January 1944 to a large voluntary hospital in East London. This had already been badly bombed, but it still continued to deal with all 'normal' hospital admissions as well as casualties. In both hospitals, discipline was strict and standards were not allowed to fall, whatever the circumstances.
After signing my contract at the end of six months, I and others of my 'set' were transferred to a 'sector' hospital. All the teaching hospitals had branches in supposedly safe areas and this one, was a converted old peoples' home in Middlesex. The rooms were not built for nursing and were most inconvenient. As indeed were the beds which were only intended for use in an emergency. These being lower and narrower than normal beds; murder for nurses backs and not much fun for the patients either. I still have a vivid recollection of an unconscious patient of twenty stone, who had to be 'turned' regularly. All available staff had to stand by to make sure she didn't roll out.
We moved to this hospital on D-Day, and were soon in the midst of the V1's. We became - as most did - pretty accurate at guessing when and where they would land. I often laugh at the vision of myself hanging on to a large oxygen cylinder, convinced that the Doodle-bug was coming through the window. I remember thinking that, no matter what, the cylinder mustn't be knocked over in case it exploded. Mad now one looks back.
We had a number of 8th Army men in the hospital and they were a great help to us all, as they made and served morning tea and elevenses. We stayed on the ward for our mid-morning break and they saw to it that we had plenty of hot buttered toast also. As you can imagine, we didn't want to leave their ward. On the other hand, it was a little nerve racking when night sister, did her first rounds, to have several men missing because they had not yet returned from the ‘local’ which was two ploughed fields away.
During one spell of night duty, some of us were called upon to open up wards to take in wounded German P.O.W.'s. We were thrilled to be called ‘Schwester’, not realising that all German nurses were called this and that we had not been promoted.
"Fleischer, bitte Schwester," (Bottle please nurse), was my first German phrase. Not much use in polite conversation.
After six months, I was transferred to another of our sector hospitals. This was purpose-built for War-time emergencies and much easier to work in. Situated in Essex, we were soon experiencing the victims and damage of the V2’s. The noise was horrendous. Some of the casualties were grim. One woman had been cooking and was buried against her hot stove. Her little girl - also injured - was in another ward. We were delighted to learn that her husband was coming home on compassionate leave. We could not tell her when, since she might have been disappointed by any delay. When he did come, there wasn’t a dry eye in the ward. We quickly screened them for privacy’s sake.
At the other end of the town, there was a regular Army Barracks and we took in some of their sick for routine operations. Someone in authority had the bright idea of filling half the ward with these ‘service sick’ and the other half with seriously wounded German P.O.W.’s. Tarpaulin curtains divided the ward, but of course, each half could hear the other. Peace was not helped by the Germans commenting happily on each rocket explosion and conditions worsened when two Italian P.O.W.’s, - disliked by either side - were admitted.
As the Allied forces neared Berlin, The Germans became quieter and prayed that the Russians did not get there first.
In another ward, I nursed some of the casualties from one of the last rockets to fall on the East End. The Vallance Road flats. One man's face was peppered with glass fragments which could only be removed as they surfaced. He kept them in a little box. At the last count there were forty pieces and more to come. I never heard him, or any of the air-raid casualties complain or bemoan their lot. How could Hitler expect to beat a people so courageous.
The eve of V.E. Day, found me on night-duty on a Men’s Medical ward. Many of the patients were very ill with heart and chest complaints. Some had Diabetes. As aforementioned, discipline in this hospital was rigid, so you can imagine our surprise when the Day Sister gave her report, apparently oblivious to the fact, that under every bed was a crate of liquid alcoholic refreshment. At her 10pm rounds, Night Sister was equally unaware, and after her departure, the party began.
One of the patients was the landlord a public house in the town and had done his best with the supplies. Despite his valiant efforts, reinforcements had to be collected from the 'local' and we feared for our careers as pyjama clad figures flitted in and out of the French windows. Finally, at about 2am, the revelries ceased and we were able to tidy the ward.
At 3am, we had one of the worst thunderstorms I can ever remember, yet no-one woke up. I wonder why? And better still, no-one was a penny the worse for their libations. We staggered to the Nurses Home with our share of the drinks, which even with the Sisters' 'blind eye' we had not dared to chance on duty.
My nursing career continued and as one of our wards filled with some of the first Japanese P.O.W.’s to return to England. We just couldn't believe their stories, any more than we could believe our Senior Medical Students who had volunteered to help at Belsen. Our War had been awful, but these horrors made us feel we had been lucky.
Dorothea Ellison, Bishopston, Swansea.

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