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This story was submitted to the People’s War Website by a volunteer from Derby CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mrs Curzon and has been added with her permission. Mrs Curzon fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was born and brought up at Trusley near Derby. During the war I was a junior nurse at the Women’s hospital in Derby and one day when I was at home off duty a training plane crashed in a nearby field, we all rushed out but there was nothing anyone could do. There were six young cadets on board and it was really awful to see their young bodies burning. We weren’t prepared for anything like this, we’d always been used to the peace and quiet of the country, and to me this was truly awful, I just don’t want to remember it.

Two Other Memories

1) When we were on night duty at the hospital we would go off the wards to help in the theatre if there was an emergency. One night when there was a raid on the Midland Station Dr Lockeraine (spelling?) was removing an appendix. Bombs were falling and sirens were going and he wrote afterwards in the case notes ‘emergency appendectomy performed while the enemy zooooooooooooooooooomed overhead!’

2) We had a white Sealyham terrier, and on VE Day we dressed him up with red and blue pompoms. He looked so patriotic he got a mention in the Derby Evening Telegraph.

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