´óÏó´«Ã½

Nursing training starts and war is declared.
Rebecca (Raby) Bracken nee Sheridan was born in 1916 at Gortaree, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland on the border with the Republic of Ireland. Raby told me about some of her memories from WW2, how she checked in to Middlesborough Parkside Hospital to start midwifery training on Saturday the 2nd September and that war was declared the next day — Sunday the 3rd September 1939:

"I had completed my nursing training at Middlesborough General Hospital and was a SRN. I arrived at Middlesborough Parkside Hospital to commence maternity training in September 1939. We did not think that there would be a war. There had been talk for some years, but it was all very vague. There was no television and the people did not know — even the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had talked about ‘peace in our time’.

Orange juice and cod liver oil.
Anyway, war was declared the day after I arrived and the ‘blackouts’ started immediately - from dusk to dawn. The siren went off on the first day, apparently a plane was overhead, but it was a false alarm. It was thought that Middlesborough, a port, and with the ironworks would be a target. There was food rationing from day one — the children up to five years old got orange juice and cod liver oil and, with the unemployment and poverty in the area at that time, it put life into them.

Holiday in Keswick.
When I was due a holiday I could not come back to Fermanagh because of the restriction on travel for civilians. Priority was given to the forces and you could only travel if it was an essential journey. My sister Mary (Molly) had gone to Middlesborough Hospital also to train as a nurse two years earlier so the two of us went to a boarding house in Keswick in the Lake District for a fortnight’s holiday. My father was upset that we could not get home for a holiday but we enjoyed the two weeks in Keswick.

Meeting Bendy.
In March 1940 I went to the Acomb Hospital, York for a further six months to do the second part of training on maternity. It was at this time that I met ‘Bendy’ — Ann Bendilow, from Hartlepool. Bendy’s friend had not managed to pass the exam from the first stage of training and so Bendy and I shared a room together. We became good friends, a friendship that lasted for over fifty years through letters, cards and visits.

We had a fairly tough time in York. We were up during the night regularly due to the air raids and it was an awful disruption to get the mothers and young babies down into the shelter and then back up. After a while it was decided not to move them down. I spent three months in the hospital and three in the district. While we did not hear a lot about the war the lady of the house where we stayed listened to the radio and got very upset about the very heavy bombing that was happening in London. We young ones of course did not have that much information about what was going on. We would walk though York at night, perhaps alone, with no worries. Bendy and I would go to the York theatre and we really enjoyed it.

I think that the evacuation from Dunkirk changed things, people realised that it was serious, and just how badly prepared the Country was.

In April 1941 my sister Annie was getting married and I returned home to County Fermanagh to help look after my mother who had arthritis. I got a job as a temporary Night Sister in Enniskillen County Hospital and later got a permanent post.

America had not yet joined the war but American planes were flying over Fermanagh with perhaps aid and I remember of a crash when five or six soldiers were killed and the injured were treated in the hospital. Then America joined the war and the troops were based at Killydeas. There were no air raids in Fermanagh but with all the flying there were a number of accidents and we treated many men. As the accidents happened at night, and I was on night-duty, I was normally there when the injured were brought in. It was a fairly tough time, twelve hours on, twelve hours off for twelve days and then two days off. It was a particularly difficult time for the theatre Sister who had to get the theatre prepared for operations for injured soldiers at night.

There were a lot of English and American men stationed in the County and quite a few were treated in the hospital, perhaps for injuries caused in training. There was one British airman who used to inquire of me by asking “Where is the Sister that walks in the night?’ The nurses were invited to dances at St Angelo and I remember being invited to an event at the Duke of Westminster’s House, Monea where there was a concert with classical music."

Raby married Gerard Bracken and went to live in Blacklion, County Cavan. She still lives on the family farm and gets up early each morning to tend the animals.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.