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This is an edited extract of a recorded interview conducted by Adrian Green of Bromley Museum with Hilda Wadsworth. It has been submitted to the People’s War website with her permission.

‘I was usually on the team admitting casualties and we were very busy, it was only a small hospital, it’s not there now. Every ward had ten extra beds put in, these were emergency beds. If you were on nights - when you came on duty at half past seven to eight o’clock in the evening, the first thing you did was prepare ten beds for treating casualties. And if it were a female ward, you would put out nightdresses, soap, flannel, and everything ready, because even when you got a list of casualties you still had all your other patients to look after.

When you got all the flying bombs, that gave such a terrific blast, and so many casualties came in with glass in their faces and arms. We would sit for hours picking glass out of their faces. I remember on a male ward when the sirens went the men who had been hit by these things and had lots of glass in them, would say ‘when it starts please pillows over our faces’. And then when the bombing got really bad in the Blitz, and one man said, ‘nurse get under the bed’, I said, ‘you don’t think nurses are going to get under the bed’. We didn’t, I mean we couldn’t evacuate them; we just stayed where we were, but the patients were very concerned.’

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