´óÏó´«Ã½

The first aid post where I worked before my training was awarded the George Medal. We worked in the Woolwich Arsenal after it had been bombed. I trained as a nurse at Lambeth Hospital I remember when it was bombed, about 20 nurses were killed, some from Ireland had only been here for 3 months. Patients who were fit enough to be moved were evacuated by torchlight to safer areas. The former workhouse- infirmary building in the hospital grounds, and was brought back into use (H Block). We nursed on bare boards, with iron bedsteads and a very small primitive sluice for 45 patients. The kitchen still had the old black gas stove.
The wards were mixed, e.g. military TB, syphilis, patients with cancer and other chronic diseases and children. There were young girls who had given birth prematurely. The babies were wrapped in damp warm cotton wool and placed in a baking tin with another tin underneath containing warm water, then put in an open oven with a glimmer of gas to produce steam, which aided their breathing. Some survived as we kept the temperature as even as possible. We had no gloves, except for theatre work. I had to rub neo-salvarsan, a mercury ointment into syphilitic limbs. Incontinent patients were cleaned with tow, a type of frayed hemp. There were no inco-pads, soiled linen had to be washed by the nurses before being sent to the laundry, which was later bombed. We had to clean up tramps, and delouse patients who had sheltered in underground stations. (I caught lice twice).
The junior nurses, had to cut and margarine bread for two wards, and mix the dried egg and porridge ready for the day nurses to serve for breakfast when they came on duty. On night duty, we were issued with a type of Billycan, four round tins held together with a spike through the middle. The top layer perhaps contained two sardines, the others potatoes, lettuce and a slice of beetroot. The bottom layer had custard floating around with sultanas, or Government Issue orange juice. The night superintendent did her round by hurricane lamp and issued each nurse with a teaspoon of tealeaves. The night nurses had to attend lectures by the sister tutor at 9am, or sometimes at Westminster Bridge, County Hall given by St Thomas’ Hospital doctors. I lived about 6 miles from the hospital, and walked home on my day off with my gas mask and tin hat, as the roads were often bombed with the buses and trams out of action.
The Matron and M.O. of the hospital must have been very good organisers to arrange for the evacuated patients to be received at a ‘safe’ hospital during night time bombing. The transport coaches and ambulances, if available, all travelling in the blackout. The Matron also had to inform the relatives of the dead and injured. During one raid, the M.O. was injured. He had trained under Pierre Curie; his wife was a sister on H Block.
I was sent to Dartford Hospital for a time where we nursed Dunkirk survivors, naval personnel as well as air-raid casualties. Towards the end of the war, we were given Penicillin (? experimentally). The yellow powder was dissolved in boiled water and drawn up into a syringe. Deep intramuscular injections were given four hourly.
My sister trained at The Royal Free, when the patients were evacuated because a land mine was perched on the roof of the boiler house, she returned to rescue false teeth. I wonder if the patients ever received their own again. In another incident during the Blitz, a young lady rescued a toddler who was playing under a moving lorry. She sustained a fractured jaw, arms, pelvis and legs. She was slung up suspended from a bar, which ran the length of the bed. Her legs were put in Thomas splints, which kept the bones in place. Her husband was recalled from the dessert war. We took turns sitting with her as the bombs were falling. She recovered and I believe received the George Medal. When there was a lull in the bombing, the patients who were well enough made dressings. These were packed in steel drums and sterilised by autoclaving, during the night. The ward sister made sure there were no cross infections, even though we worked in such primitive conditions.
One of the Irish sisters sat up all night with a young girl suffering from septicaemia resulting from a back —street abortion, there were quite a few of these. I don’t know if the girl survived, but the sister died 3 weeks later from cancer. After one bombing some staff went back to rescue the linen, they were blown of the inter-connecting bridge. A sister sustained a fractured skull, but was back on duty within a few months. She and her sister (the night superintendent) had been missionary nurses in China.
We had no complaints, as that was the accepted way of life for millions of people. I still meet old colleagues who have survived. Once when I was early, I went into Liberty’s antique dept., and saw the Billycans. Some Americans were questioning their use and `I enlightened them, much to their horror.

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