大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/大象传媒 Radio Nottingham on behalf of Joyce Hollingworth with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I joined the Red Cross at the beginning of the war at the age of 19 years and after some excellent training became a V.A.D. My detachment was stationed in a First Aid post attached to St Margaret鈥檚 Hospital in Epping. During the quiet period of the war we were sent into the wards to help the overworked nursing staff and gained valuable experience. Later, when the bombing started, I drove a mobile unit, which was an ancient laundry van with hardly any brakes! This was used to deal with emergency treatments and minor surgery on the bomb sites. Driving it at night with poor slit lighting was, to say the least, difficult. I remember anaesthetics being given with a metal mask into which was clipped a thick gauze pad and onto which was dripped ether meth.

One night two landmines landed on a camp of soldiers on the Kings Own Scottish Borderers on the edge of Epping Forest. Casualties were numerous, many of them suffering from very severe blast injuries, especially to their chest. Having worked all night giving first aid to the men we were sent into the chaotic wards where the medical staff were trying to treat blast injuries for the first time in their lives. The patients needed very tender and gently nursing, some of them the same age as myself. They were wonderfully brave.

I remember another horrific incident very clearly which occurred at 3am in the morning. A house containing pregnant women sheltering from the bombing of the East End of London received two direct hits. I was off duty and was called out at 4am. There were desperately injured casualties but those making the loudest cries were the ones who had started premature labour and were not severely injured. I remember one woman who somehow managed to stagger up to the First Aid post with her arm almost severed. There was very little bleeding- she was deep in shock but remained calm and courageous; also there was no sign of the baby arriving. A week later she was sitting up in bed in a ward knitting a jumper for her husband supporting one knitting needle against her body with the stump of her amputated arm.
I remember the shock effect this had on the doctors- they had coped well with the soldiers but with pregnant girls, emotionally it was all too much; as indeed it was for all of us.
Later on in the war North Weald Aerodrome, 3 miles away, was bombed in broad daylight and we were sent in with our first aid bags to assist any casualties. Obviously there were unexploded bombs about but strangely there was little fear. We were 24 hours on duty and 24 hours off duty and were paid 拢2 a week. When I went to the Royal London Hospital to train as a nurse in 1943 I was so thankful for all the experience I鈥檇 had in the Red Cross.

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