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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Lin Freeman of Radio Derby CSV on behalf of Mrs Vera Havlik and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I started my nursing in private nursing, but when the state took over I joined the NHS .
I was in a military hospital at Market Bosworth, Leicestershire and I did two years there. I then went to Derby City Hospital and I was there when Rolls Royce was bombed. The bombers were aiming for the chimneys and we had to move patients from the verandas back inside. I saw the planes and we were all frightened. Just across from The City Hospital was the hospital for waifs and stray, The Foundry House Infirmary. We used to get some patients from there.

We also had patients from other hospitals and that is how I met my husband who came in for a cartilage operation. He was from Prague stationed at Church Broughton with the Wellington Bombers. When trouble had started he had escaped to France from Prague and was in the French air force for six weeks. When the collapse of France happened he came to Britain because he was a fully trained pilot. We used to meet when he was off duty and he would take me out to Derby. Eventually he was moved from Church Broughton to Wales to St Athans airfield. After that it was difficult to travel so I eventually moved to London as it was easier for him to travel there rather than Derby.

I did my TBs in Croydon Barrow Sanatorium. Many people slept in the underground stations to escape the raids and so TB was easily spread, and we had a lot of patients.

From there I went to the West Middlesex Hospital, Isleworth where I spent four years doing my General. At this time my husband to be was moved back to Church Broughton for a short time, and then to Pembrokeshire, a little place called Talbenny.
By this time I had moved to Cardiff to St David’s Hospital. We got married in July 1945 and when he was demobbed stayed down in Cardiff where all our children were born — two boys and two girls.

After the war my husband worked for the South Wales electricity board as a photographer, but he knew I was a Nottingham girl (Duke of Portland estate), and that my mother still lived in Ashby so when he saw an advert for a photographer for the coal board in Bretby he applied. He went for an interview and got the job so we moved from Cardiff to Burton on Trent in 1963. I still wanted to do some nursing and went to the orthopaedic hospital at Bretby which was only a stone throw away from where he worked and we lived.

I retired at 60 (which was compulsory), but looked out for an industrial post and so ended up working for Nestles at Tutbury.

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