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TRAVELLING ACROSS THE ATLANTIC IN WW2 AND MY EXPERIENCE ON DUTY AS A NURSE WHEN THE ST. FRANCIS WING OF DULWICH HOSPITAL WAS BOMBED.

BY LILIAN WILLIAMSON (NEE VALE ) - AGED 82 YEARS.

In 1939 my home was at Dagenham, Essex, where I lived with my parents and five brothers and sisters. I was sixteen years of age and a full time member of the Dagenham Girl Pipers. In April 1939, a band of twenty-four members travelled to America to appear in the New York Worlds Fair on Long Island.

During this time we also spent two weeks in Canada, appearing at the Exhibition Toronto National Park, which was attended by a royal visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. A highlight of that engagement was our performance with the massed pipe-bands of military and police academies, together with the only other all girls pipe band, the ‘Saskatchewan Girls Pipe Band’, which had just recently formed.

It was on our return to New York that we heard of the declaration of war and that a decision had been made to return all band members under the age of eighteen years to our homeland, while the remainder of the band stayed on to finish our contract and other engagements that had transpired.

There were approximately ten younger band members who boarded the s.s. Washington in early October, 1939, anxious to be back with our families but unaware of the serious situation we were in while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Our chaperone and members of the crew reassured us that all would be well. We had plenty of lifeboat drill as a daily routine.

During the eight to nine days journey we were kept well occupied with band practice and joined in with the other activities on deck. We were not made aware of the danger and threats surrounding our journey until we reached home, when we heard of the anxiety experienced by our parents. Many more anxious times were to follow as the war progressed.

On my return home I learned that my mother and my two younger brothers and sister had been evacuated to the Norfolk coast. I was to live at home with my two teenage sisters and our father. Also, because of the war, it was announced that the Dagenham Girl Pipers were to disband until further notice, which meant I needed to seek full time work elsewhere.

As a teenager at work during the Second World War, (1939-1945), we had the choice of joining the armed forces, nursing, or factory work, as a contribution to the war effort if not already in secure employment. As a female at 16 years of age, I was still too young for the first two options. I settled for a factory job in Ilford, Essex, until the factory was wiped out in a bombing raid.

In 1940 I secured myself in a position as a trainee cook in a convalescent home in Cromer, Norfolk. It offered full accommodation and a safe environment in which to socialize locally, which I enjoyed for two years before returning home to Dagenham to be with my family.

It was 1942 and once again factory work was available, so I went to work at Plessey’s in Ilford, making radios for aircraft and ships, etc. I made new friends and when it came to summer holidays, I decided to go and visit my grandparents with my friend Irene. Nan and Grandad had been evacuated from their home in North London at a time when it was considered a risk zone with air raids.

They were sent to live with a Mr. And Mrs. Sheppard and their family in a town in the Rhondda Valley , South Wales. They had their own bed-sitting room and could more or less cater for themselves. Grandad was a gardener by trade and he enjoyed helping out in the garden, growing fruit and vegetables. The Sheppard family welcomed any of our family who came to visit Nan and Grandad. Irene and I shared a room with the daughter of the family, who was our age and took us out and about on day trips. I remember it was a happy holiday.

The following year, 1943, I felt the need to be more patriotic and enlisted as a trainee assistant nurse. A ten-week crash course as a probationer, in the St. Francis Wing of Dulwich Hospital, enabled me to attend to patients on the wards while still attending training and promotion. The ‘live in’ accommodation with full board was the policy in those days, so wages were paid accordingly with deductions to allow for this.

We had no complaints, as our personal needs were restricted to time off spent studying, or the occasional outing to meet friends or family. Clothing was rationed, entertainment was scarce and war like conditions left little to save for. That could all come later when the war ended. Meanwhile, we had our own welfare and that of our patients to consider, with frequent air raids over London and other deprivations, such as loss of services and maintenance for everyday chores.

None more so that the night our hospital received a direct hit during an air raid. The nurses’ home and the children’s ward were severely damaged, while other wards and facilities, suffering fire and broken glass, meant that we who were on night duty had the task of calming and removing all patients from the area. Some were walking and others we pushed, in their beds, into the waiting ambulances to be transferred to Homerton Hospital in Hackney for assessment. Any personal belongings recovered were sent to us within a few days.

By then it was decided that all patients should be evacuated and we nurses were asked to volunteer to go with them! We volunteered to go and arrived overnight in Edinburgh. We were divided on arrival and transferred between hospitals in the area. I was sent with my group to the Eastern General Hospital, Leith, where I continued nursing until the end of the war in 1945.

The end of the war was celebrated in Princes Street, Edinburgh, just as in Trafalgar Square, London, where thousands of revellers took to the streets, flocking to join together in a jovial party atmosphere. Organised events then took place on other occasions to mark VE Day and later, VJ Day.

L. Williamson.

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