大象传媒

I was 17 when war broke out, working in a florists in my home town of Rugby. My father was a headmaster who had survived the Somme. My brother was a student at Balliol College, Oxford when the war started, studying nuclear physics. Around 1943 he met Robert Oppenheimer who was working on the first atom bomb.

After a few months I decided to do something more worthwhile so chose to do nursing. Beginning in Oxford at an orthopaedic hospital, two wards were taken over for men returning from Dunkirk. The hospital was doing some of the first trials with penicillin. Within two years the Americans were building a hospital for their own wounded. Many Americans came over to staff their hospital and they came into ours to observe. I worked in both for a while. On occasions the orderlies would collapse.

I then moved to Queen Elizabeth's Hospital in Birmingham for general nursing. Within 24 hours of D-Day we saw many extra casualties. I was working eight hours on and eight off. It was very tiring as you never knew where you were. Convoys were coming in every other night so casualties were sorted into priorities. As there was a shortage of soap, one of the surgeons asked a friend in Edinburgh to come up with a substitute. This could be viewed as one of the first detergents and was used for scrubbing-up. It was also great for shampooing hair, though some nurses were allergic to it. Also there were experiments in using the first nerve sutures. As hair is absorbent, some of mine was used. Proper sutures were developed from these experiments. The young surgeon doing this was sent out to Malta with his equipment, but his ship went down in the Bay of Biscay.

After D-Day I was working on the orthopaedic ward. We were invited to the headquarters of the bomb disposal officers for a party. We had lovely times, bearing in mind these men were risking their lives daily and their survival rate was 50%. When I took an American up to the top of a hill he thought I had an ulterior motive. He said " Did I want it?" I hadn't a clue what he meant. He was very disappointed because all we did was watch the bombing.

One night, three months after D-Day, a man who was very ill was admitted and put into a side ward. It was my job to administer penicillin to him. Though he was on the danger list I became very attracted to him. His parents came from Bournemouth; they worked on a farm at Holdenhurst. The man's leg was shattered and on the following night he was haemorrhaging badly. the third night he was plastered up and a little better. I was due to go off that night and he proposed to me. I came back after two weeks and I was on an adjoining ward to him. The ward sister had also taken a shine to him and took him into the linen room. I used to meet him down the corridor behind the iron lung. When the sister knew he was keen on me she had him transferred to Oswestry. All told, he had nine operations.

Eventually he came down to Bournemouth where his father was managing Pitt House farm at Avon. I finished my training in Birmingham, then we got married and had 47 very happy years.

(PK)

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