大象传媒

Polmont Road, Laurieston, by Falkirk - FK2 9QT

Edi Stark talks to Janey Smith, about the remarkable World War One adventures of her great aunt, Margaret Cowie Crowe, who she knew as, Aunt Meg. Margaret Cowie Crowe was a trained nurse, from Laurieston, by Falkirk, and in 1915 she served with the Scottish Women鈥檚 Hospitals; all-female medical units set up at the outbreak of WWI. More than 1500 women volunteered, risking their lives to nurse wounded soldiers in battle zones across Europe, saving countless lives.

Margaret was sent initially to Serbia to nurse soldiers and civilians suffering from the typhus epidemic. Later that year, escaping the invading army, she survived the Great Serbian Retreat, one of the great epic journeys of the First World War. This was almost a mass exodus of a whole country which would take the remnants of the Serbian Army, along with hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees, 500 miles across some of the roughest terrain in Europe in the middle of winter.

She returned home on Christmas Eve and by early 1916, missing her sister鈥檚 wedding; Margaret was off again, this time to Russia and was in there during the revolution. During her time in Russia she learned to speak the language and had many fond memories of the country and the people she met there. Returning to Scotland at the end of 1918, she spent the rest of her life in the family home in Laurieston.
When she died in 1973, at the age of 90, her last words to her niece, who was nursing her, were in Russian. She said 鈥淪pasibo鈥� 鈥� 鈥淭hank you鈥�.

Images courtesy of Janey Smith

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