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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Katherine Kissane on behalf of Mollie Kissane and has been added to the site with her permission. Mollie Kissane fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

In February 1938, at the age of sixteen, Mollie left Ireland on a long journey for England to begin work as a nurse. She worked in East Sussex County Hospital in the small village of Hellingly, near Hailsham. She was the only Irish girl on the ward. She had never been away from home before. She was still in England training for her nursing qualification when war was declared on 3rd September 1939.

‘This is an account of my experience as a Nurse in East Sussex in England during the war and before it started.

I arrived in England from Glenbeigh, County Kerry in February 1938. I travelled from Killarney to Dublin, and on to Holyhead in Wales and London. I arrived at Euston Station and took the Underground to Victoria. I got a train from there to Hellingly Station in East Sussex. A publican and his wife ran a restaurant across the road from the station. He had arrangements with the hospital to meet the London train and take any hospital staff to the hospital.

He was there when the train arrived. I went across with him and met his wife, and they treated me very well, gave me a lovely lunch. I stayed there until four o’clock. We arrived at the hospital about 4.30pm. A warm welcome awaited me there and I felt very happy there for many years.

I started work next morning in E1 ward. The sister in charge was from the Isle of Wight, the staff nurse was from Belfast. There were four of us student nurses. It was a convalescent ward, where the patients from B1 surgical ward were sent. We enjoyed our work. We worked from 7am to 7pm. It was a twelve hour shift on every ward.

My uniform consisted of six blue long-sleeve dresses, six white starched aprons, six pairs of white stiff starched cuffs, six white stiff starched collars, six starched caps, six blue stiff starched belts and a navy blue cape lined with red baize. It had two red straps that crossed over at the front. We also wore black stockings and black shoes. We had to send our washing to the laundry every Monday morning. It used to cost us four shillings and six pence per week.

We had a busy time as we were having lectures for our Preliminary Exams. We took them in July so at least we got them over and got our results. Ten Irish Nurses took them. Eight passed, five were from Kerry — one from Firies, one from Killarney, two from Tralee and myself.

It was not long before everything changed — when war was declared. By then, I was used to working on each of the ten wards. We did about two months on each ward. I did two months on night duty. I liked it as I was with a lovely Sister from Newport in Wales. We were busy but the time went so fast. We had a lot of deaths.

The morning war was declared, we had gone to bed about nine o’clock. We were all awakened and told to go to the dining room. We were joined by some of the day staff who had their day off. We were advised about what our duties would be. Much did not change, except the air raid sirens started about 12.30. They may have been testing them, but we did not get much sleep that day.

When we went on duty that night, a few wards had already had their blackout shutters up, and the day staff had been helping put out the blackout blinds. We were given torches to walk around and look at our patients. No lights could be put on until all the wards were checked from outside to make sure no lights were showing if they had been switched on accidentally. We got used to walking around in the dark. I knew my way well from one ward to the next. Instead of being on my own ward, I was given the round, as it was called, on ten wards. I had to walk through them all night. Sometimes I used to meet up with the night sister. There were only the two of us on the round.’

Mollie remembers that they were unable to move bodies to the mortuary because of the blackouts. Instead, they would have to leave the bodies out on mattresses on the floor. One night, when she was working duty as a night nurse, she heard a thud. One of the other nurses had been walking so fast that she had fallen straight over a body!

‘In 1940, our admission hospital became a Military Casualty hospital. There were about 300 soldiers walking around with crutches and sticks. We were not allowed to mix with them and they were not allowed to come up the drive to our hospital.

Our final lectures had been cancelled. This was the first week of war. Everything was quiet on the night floor. The sirens got to be a regular sound for waking us, but we got quite familiar to hearing them every day, sometimes during the day.

When I went back on day duty again, bombing had started. There was no change in our work in the wards. We were so busy we did not notice the planes flying overhead. They had started bombing London, Liverpool, Coventry, Manchester and several other towns and cities. The London Blitz started in September. Massive raids on Southampton, Bristol and Cardiff. Coventry Cathedral was destroyed, and many civilians killed.

We never had to go into an air raid shelter as we had such a big basement under the hospital. The hospital never got a direct hit. The station did but nobody got hurt.

I was on a TB ward with twenty-eight very sick patients. The veranda outside the front of half the ward had to be left open in all weathers. After two months, I went back on night duty again for thirteen weeks. After that I was on a surgical ward.

In May 1941, there was a heavy German bombing raid on London — the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and British Museum. By this time, I was back on night duty again. Everything was so different now as butter, meat, bacon and sugar were rationed. It did not affect us as we got plenty food in the hospital all the time. We still used to go to our little restaurant down at the bottom of the hospital drive, and she always had plenty of food for us on our day off.’

Mollie only returned to Ireland once during the war. She remembers that the only noticeable impact of the war in Ireland was rationing. They were short of everything — especially tea! That trip was at the beginning of the war. In fact, she could not have returned to England under normal circumstances, but due to her work of national importance, she was permitted to return. After 1940, all the ports to Ireland were closed. She could not return after this visit until after the end of the war. Her first visit was in 1947.

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