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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Chris Comer of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Ethel's neice, Susan Crossley and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Ethel Horner (nee Bardsley) was educated at Stockport Girls High School. After leaving school she decided to become a nurse because England was at war with Germany. Ethel commenced her Nurse Training at Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport and after four years training she qualified as an S.R.N. (State Registered Nurse) in 1943. She then commenced her midwifery training at the same hospital and became a S.C.M. (State Certified Midwife).

The Army, the Navy and the Air force were asking for trained nurses to look after the wounded service personnel at home and overseas.

Ethel volunteered to serve in the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing service on the 27th July 1944. After her interviews she was accepted and given the rank of Lieutenant Nursing Sister. She was posted to a military hospital in England. After a period of time Ethel was posted to 105 British Military Hospital, Den Haan in Belgium where there were many wounded soldiers and also medical cases. She stayed here until she was posted to the 29th British Military Hospital, Notre Dame des Espinas, which was in a convent.

The military hospitals were very busy and admitting many wounded soldiers from various battle zones. Hospital staff were generally not permitted to walk outside the perimeter of the hospital but one day when Ethel was walking around the grounds she felt the desire to walk down the road outside. However, after a short distance, much to her surprise she met her brother also walking down the road! (They had no idea they were living in the same area!). They continued to walk down the road together and amazingly saw their other brother walking up the road towards them. (Again they had no idea he was in the area either). However they finally had to part and go their separate ways and did not meet again until after the war was over and they were back in Stockport with the family.

On the 18th may 1945, when the war in Europe ceased Ethel was posted, with other personnel, to Belsen Concentration Camp. The scenes that faced the team were so horrific that everyone was lost for words. The work of caring for and moving the living skeletons horrified them but they all worked with dignity and respect. Ethel refused to discuss what she had witnessed at Belsen – not even with her family.

Ethel unfortunately contracted tuberculosis and had to return to England for treatment. She eventually recovered and continued her service with the Queens Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service in a military hospital in England.

In 1948 Ethel left the Service and returned to Stepping Hill Hospital as a Ward Sister. In 1957 she met and married Joseph Horner. He died in 1984 and sadly Ethel died in the Meadows Hospital, Stockport on the 14th June 2003 at the age of 81 years. Her funeral service was held St Thomas’s Church, High Lane.

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