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Interlude - at a military hospital

This is the fourth story in a series of six short stories written by my father, AEG Allsop. He was born in Cromford, Derbyshire in 1918.

It may come to be that the normal tenure of our lives is unexpectedly interrupted and that we feel almost that we are in a new and strange dimension. I propose to write of this short period of my life as an interlude - or was it a dream ?

I cannot remember how I came to be in the ‘Gogs’. I had been very ill, a patient in Leys School Annex, an extension of Addenbrookes in Cambridge, when suddenly I was back in uniform standing by the door clutching the few personal articles that accompanied me when I first arrived stretcher-borne at the hospital, a grim Victorian block, bleak with cold white tiles, a place where I suppose because of my weakened state I frequently shivered in bed. What I do remember was finding that my underwear, stained and unwashed had been returned to me by the store-keeper.

I have nothing but praise for the doctor and nurses who attended me, especially the sister, an old battle-axe if there ever was one, but who had a warm heart under that forbidding exterior. As she spoke a few kind words to me as she saw me off she produced a scarf from somewhere and wrapped it round my neck. It was late November and bitterly cold.

Then as in a dream I was welcomed into a great warm room, oak floored, panelled, carpeted and lit by an enormous log fire that spat and crackled in an open hearth, a room the like of which I had only seen in magazines. Someone was playing a piano. All around were comfortable armchairs occupied by men quietly chatting or reading.

I was put to bed in a small room I was to share with an RAF sergeant. Meals were brought to me by nurses in the uniform of the Red Cross. Soon after my arrival the local doctor called and I was paraded before him. This was my first encounter with Matron Sutton. Was she a nun ? - my first thought. Dressed in darkest blue, a dress which allowed only a glimpse of black stockings and shoes, the overall effect scarcely relieved by a white collar. Unfortunately for me, due to some cross infection I had acquired in the previous establishment I was somewhat embarrassed when the doctor requested that I drop my pyjama trousers revealing all. The Matron adjusted her spectacles and bent down to get a better view. A spot of ointment was prescribed and soon all was returned to good working order.

After a few days I became an 'up patient' able to have meals with the other convalescents, to spend much of the day reading and chatting, having a fag and gradually learning something of the home we shared.

The ‘Gogs’ as it was known occupied a site on the crest of a ridge of low hills offering a commanding view of the university town of Cambridge. Two of the hills had been named Gog and Magog after the two legendary giants said to have been warders in the tower of London. The Gogs, a small country estate of arable land and woodland, was the home of Lord John and Lady Gray. Lady Gray, the commandant of the local division of the Red Cross had leased her home for the duration of the war as a convalescent home for servicemen. The staff, some of whom lived in, were recruited from the same organisation and consisted of Matron, a sister, a quartermaster and full time cook. The military were represented by a physical training instructor whose duties were obvious, but I never actually saw him do anything, and a corporal who did not appear to have any duties other than to eat and sleep, but who was allocated an office to do it in. A cushy billet indeed. For the most part we ignored them, feeling that we owed the Grays our loyalty and tried not to cause them any problems. Not every day did quiet and peace reign. There were noisy quarrels amongst the card players, with a degree of unpleasantness to one of their number. A Liverpudlian with some arm injury had so bandaged himself that his arm became a bludgeon to defend himself when he went off into the town in the darkening afternoon

I was thoroughly enjoying the generous and varied food provided. Unfortunately the change from the stringency of the diet at the Ley's School generated a succession of small boils often in awkward places making sitting comfortably well nigh impossible. Initially Matron Sutton attended to me. I soon found that she was approachable and had a sense of humour, at least to the patients, but the nurses feared her disapproval.

It was nearly Christmas. Mother and Dad had entertained high hopes that I might go home for a few days. The last time they had seen me they had been sent for urgently, but the Sister, wisely I am sure, persuaded me not to attempt the journey. I have to admit that I was not very keen to go as nurses and patients were eagerly preparing for Christmas Day, creating such decorations as were possible. The Hall was indeed 'bedecked with holly and mistletoe bough'. Long tables had been laid with snowy white table cloths or were they sheets ? Purple decorations lent colour. We feasted on turkey and Christmas pudding washed down with beer, the unavoidable spillage leeched the colour from the paper decorations, staining the cloths dreadfully. Then we sang carols, for a time forgetting the conflict that continued unabated in the world outside. An impromptu concert followed.

Some of the men, as part of a programme of therapy, were making coloured belts from macrame twine finished off with plastic buckles. The procedure was to buy the necessary materials, persuade a nurse to choose a colour, make the belt and sell it back to the ever indulgent staff.

I had now been allocated a bed in the Garden Room, a delightful spacious place, oak-floored, oak-panelled with a french window giving access to a lawn which stretched away to a boundary of huge beech trees bordering woodland. As I became stronger I joined a few chaps in sweeping leaves and another time helping to gather logs for that most important fire.

It was about this time that a St John's Life Brigade nurse came to fill a vacancy. How was I to know that our future should be linked from that moment ? I can only repeat that I first fell in love with that shining hair that could not quite be confined by the starchy uniform cap she wore.

Men came and went, but I lingered to become assistant to the quartermaster collecting laundry and issuing clean shirts. During our time in convalescence we wore bright blue jackets and trousers, white shirts and the obligatory red tie. Some of these garments were new, but most were old, faded and washed to destruction. In truth much of this equipment had been moth-balled since the end of the 1914-1918 war.

One of the new arrivals was Tom Sidey, a builder by trade and a native of Berwick on Tweed, who brought a new dimension to our lives; he was witty with many a good experience to recount. We were to become great friends. When he first arrived, however, he was a very unhappy man. It appeared that the good people of Cambridge had donated a mobile operating theatre to the war effort. There, to the admiration of the dignitories, Tom was stretchered out from the hospital and operated upon to 'strip out' varicose veins developed, he averred, from the endless stamping around during the initial training. He was still in great pain believing wrongly I am sure that the treatment he received was adversely affected by the attentions of the media. Soon his wife came to spend a few days with him; arrangements had been made for them to stay with the Matlocks, estate workers, who lived in the Gate Keeper's cottage. "Ted", he told me, "I can't do anything. My legs won't let me."

Each Sunday we had a short service, the staff joining us. This little gathering was led by Lady Gray. I had been co-opted to play for the singing and it was suggested that I should choose the hymns, so Tom and I found a couple of 'old favourites', but we had been given to understand that Lady Gray wished that "Eternal Father strong to save" should be sung, so that hymn was always included.
Anna and I were now trying to see one another whenever possible. Association between nurse and patient was not encouraged, of course, but when she was on night duty and all was quiet, I crept from my bed to join her, to sit in the firelight glow and warmth of that so welcoming hearth. We met again clandestinely to go for bike rides visiting the nearby villages. This dream must surely end some day. The doctor called to enquire of my welfare, but apparently I was adjudged unfit to return to my unit. Came my birthday and amazingly there was a birthday cake made especially for me.

It had to end of course. One morning my transfer came and I left the Gogs wondering what the future held for me. Several of the staff came to see me off. The interlude ended abruptly.

I woke out of my dream to be once again ordered to bed. A bed this time one of many lined up around the Great Hall in Hatfield House. I was to stay there until the Medical Officer had read my medical history. High above us in the timbered roof hung regimental flags bearing honours won on bloody battlefields long ago, mouldering, moth-eaten. This museum-like air was disturbed by the constant movement down below; small shreds of these trophies fell on us as we lay in our beds.

The medical officer and an officer of the Queen Alexandra's Nursing Service made their daily rounds. Those patients who could, stood to attention, eyes front; those in bed too lay at attention bound in by the perfectly symmetrical folds of the top sheet. This was the Army !

Many years later Anna and I revisited the Gogs, but in the intervening years, archaeologists had discovered that the lovely old house was built over the remains of an Iron Age fort, or some such, and had been completely demolished. It was if it had never been ! Was it a dream? Where are all those who shared this interlude, this
dream ? All are gone ? Well, we do have a small dish fashioned in Irish silver given to us as a wedding present by Lady Gray.

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