Working with the VAD in
WAR - what a
kaleidoscope of memories the word conjures up for me! Memorials to vital
moments in a lifetime; for I believe that as we grow older, we possess nothing
of real value but the past.
The 1930s, as I
recall, were dismal years – bleak in the sense that, though the Great War was
12 years behind us, we felt we hadn’t very much to look forward to. Our country
had lost the flower of its youth in that war and we were plunged into
widespread unemployment in the 30s. Many young men I knew were ‘laid off’,
sometimes just as they were beginning a promising career. I remember seeing
pictures in the papers of various marches by the unemployed to
As the Bard said,
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions!” So to add
to our troubles there were premonitions in the papers of a coming war with our
old enemy,
About this time, in
one English lesson in school, we studied two poems that summed up what people,
in their heart of hearts, may have thought about the possibility of yet another
war so soon after the last one. Our English teacher, who had distressing facial
injuries received in the Great War, was understandably bitter, which might account
for his choosing these anti-war poems. Here is the last verse of the poem
entitled “Will it be so again?” by C. Day-Lewis, who writes, in simple
language, of the lies and hypocrisy of the powers-that-be:
Call not upon the glorious dead
To be your witnesses then!
The living alone can nail to their
Promise the ones who said:
“It
shall not be so again.”
The other poem is by
probably the greatest of World War 1 poets, Wilfred Owen, who was a serving
officer at the time he wrote it; the wonder is he wasn’t drummed out of the
Army as a result. From first hand experience he wrote poignantly of the
appalling sufferings and dreadful deaths of many soldiers. At the end of “Dulce Et
Decorum Est” he wrote:
“The
old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori”
(it’s a sweet and fitting thing to die for your
country)
It’s an old lie told
to, and swallowed by, past generations and even written on many war memorials.
And yet, I have to say
that at times of crisis, when a country and its people are fighting for their
very life, such propaganda (like most war propaganda) may become absolutely
necessary.
By 1938 even the
optimists amongst us were beginning to think the worst. The papers were full of
pictures of Adolf Hitler,
the German Führer and
dictator, always marching with his cohorts of well-drilled Nazis into the
surrounding countries of Austria and Czechoslovakia, taking them over without
as much as a by-your-leave.
We in
Our fate was finally
sealed when, in 1939, Hitler invaded
A strange trio
ON THE HOME FRONT IN
Now that the country
was at war, we were all under orders. Food, of course, was rationed. What queer
things we ate in those days: ox cheek and lamb’s tongues were two regarded as
delicacies. Then there were Woolton
Pies (Lord Woolton was
Minister of Food) – dry-as-dust. We were urged over the radio to try different
recipes, using dried egg, also very unappetising. Ersatz coffee was awful. What
joy to come across the occasional banana or for my mother to be slipped a nice
juicy steak from a friend involved in the black market.
It seems, however,
that our meagre diet didn’t do us any harm. In fact, we’ve been told since that
that the nation was never healthier than when we had to tighten our belts –
though I’m not advocating a return to our wartime diet as the answer to today’s
obesity problems.
Clothes were at a
premium and you were glad to wear cast-offs and ‘liquid’ stockings were a
godsend – you painted your legs to match the colour of stockings, which were so
difficult to come by. Those newly-weds who were setting up house (if they were
lucky enough to get one) had to rely on second-hand or ‘Utility’ furniture.
Truth is the first
casualty of war, so propaganda to keep up our spirits appeared daily on radio
and hoardings. Though I’m not suggesting we were told lies (maybe the Ministry
of Information was just a bit economical with the truth!). Nightly, we were
told about Cockney heroism in
The Forces were, of
necessity, as close as oysters about their movements. It was often a case of
‘folding up their tents and creeping silently away’. Many promising romances
were nipped in the bud as a result. As some of my friends, lacking
understanding, remarked bitterly: “they’re here today and gone tomorrow’.
As for our arch enemy,
Hitler, to begin with we laughed at this
comical, strutting little fellow with the staring maniacal eyes and a stub for
a moustache like Charlie Chaplin’s. Somehow, you couldn’t take him seriously –
‘mad as a hatter’, we thought – till we realised he was a dangerous, wicked
madman when we heard with horror of the Holocaust and the ineffable
concentration camps. He was a megalomaniac, a madman with delusions of grandeur
and an abnormal craving for power. I always saw him as a gigantic mouth forever
screaming abuse at the Allies. As for his Nazi followers, they worshipped him
as a god and “Heil Hitler”
was never off their lips. He was invariably accompanied by podgy Goering, his right-hand man and
founder of the Gestapo, the much-feared secret state police and by the
Machiavellian Minister for Propaganda, the sinister Goebbels.
In the end, we knew
that, at all costs, he and his gang would have to be exterminated like so much
vermin.
To keep up our morale,
we had to be entertained, so ENSA, the Entertainments
National Service Association, was set up for that purpose: songs, films, radio
and stage shows were put on; professional film and stage stars were ‘called up’
and travelled all over the world to entertain the troops wherever they were stationed.
Vera Lynn, now a Dame, the ‘Forces Sweetheart’ as she was called, sang
sentimental ditties like “We’ll gather lilacs in the spring again” or “The
White Cliffs of Dover.” Then there were patriotic songs like “We’ll hang our
washing on the Siegfried Line” or “Run, Rabbit run.” J B Priestley, the famous
The films shown were
intended to arouse our patriotism – “In which we serve” and “The Way to the
Stars” were both very fine. But the most popular was undoubtedly “Mrs Miniver” with Greer Garson in the
lead. It was excellent. Churchill, now the Prime Minister,
claimed, in his hyperbolic way that “Mrs Miniver
did more for public morale than a flotilla of destroyers!” A film I saw
then and thought excellent but which had no connection with the war was “Brief
Encounter”, scripted by Noel Coward. It was a great hit; script and acting were
first class, with Trevor Howard as the doctor and Celia Johnson the housewife
who met accidentally on a railway station platform. Their love affair
progressed to the background music of Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano
Concerto. It was a lovely, wistful kind of film – very different from a film
with a similar story would be in today’s world: the lovers did not commit
adultery and both returned to their families. Two other outstanding films I saw
then, both about war, were “Henry V”, with Laurence
Olivier and “Gone with the Wind”, about the American Civil War. Though an
American film, it had three British actors in the lead roles.
At this period, things
weren’t going at all well for the Allies. One blow after another rained down on
our ill-prepared shoulders. Worse was to come: our chief ally, France,
surrendered to the Germans, much to our disgust, and that stiff-necked,
arrogant giant of a man, General de Gaulle, was appointed head of the Free
French forces. So no longer could we rely on the Maginot Line, that
fortified bulwark between
In the summer of 1940,
however, we were bucked up by Churchill’s famous speech to the nation. I was on
holiday in Dunoon at the
time, with a girl friend. The hotel was full of lads and lassies having a good
time. One night it was announced That Churchill would be making a very
important speech on the radio. Everyone stayed in to listen as we felt it would
be ominous. Churchill’s voice, with its imperfect sibilants and his strange
pronunciation of ‘Nazis’ (sounding, appropriately enough, like ‘Nasties’) was unmistakeable.
Towards the end of his speech there was a breathless hush as he announced that
we would fight on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields and in the
streets; we would fight in the hills and never surrender. Unmistakeably it was
a stentorian call to action and it certainly galvanized us, his listeners. You
could almost see the light of battle in our eyes; there was a straightening of
backs, a girding of the loins, as it were. We pictured ourselves being issued
with guns and waiting in ambush for the first of the enemy daring to land on
our shores, then giving him a bloody nose. It was indeed an exhilarating
occasion!
Life, I reckon, was
never the same after that speech. Up to that point we hadn’t taken the war
seriously – after all it was called the ‘Phoney War’ and we had the Maginot Line to protect us,
hadn’t we? It was unthinkable that our island could ever be
invaded. After 1066, only the Spanish and Dutch had the temerity to have
a go, but they hadn’t got further than the Channel. However, the French
surrender was a bitter blow and the
When the Luftwaffe
started its bombing campaign, you couldn’t see the sky over the Channel for
enemy planes – a terrifying sight! But they were deflected from their objective
by the skill and courage of our young Spitfire pilots (hastily trained, in
planes hurriedly produced). Again, we owed it to Churchill for summing up the
nation’s heartfelt thanks with the simple, unforgettable words, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much
owed by so many to so few.”
On the home front,
Anderson Air Raid Shelters were provided for the garden if you had one.
In our case, we had to shelter in the cellars or “dunnies” as they were called under the tenements in
“Best get down to the
shelter,” said my mother, “and put on your warmest clothes. It’ll be bitter
down there.”
My father, in spite of
our pleas, refused to budge. He was a fatalist: “I’m not going down there. If
my name’s on that bomb, I’ll cop it anyway.”
My mother, agitated by
now, thrust into a bag: milk, biscuits, books and her knitting; joining our
neighbours, we made our way by torch and moonlight to our shelter. In the harsh
light of three naked, electric light bulbs, the cellar certainly looked like a
dungeon. The authorities had provided a table, chairs and a cupboard stocked
with crockery and cutlery but there was no heating and the air was dank and
musty. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a rat scurry across the floor.
There were mostly women and children seated around the table. An elderly couple
huddled in a corner, holding hands, too frightened to speak. A young mother
rocked her fractious baby to sleep while another attempted to interest her two
tired lads in a game of rummy. Mr McLeod kept cracking feeble jokes, to
everyone’s irritation, while his bored teenage daughter varnished her nails. My
mother had brought warm sausage rolls wrapped up in two cosies and, as always,
had her knitting to keep her busy. The only serene member was old Mrs Mason,
who smiled and talked to her neighbours, shared out the coffee she brought in a
flask and handed out dolly mixtures and wine gums to the children.
The distant wailing
changed to a thunderous roaring. Everyone looked terrified. Every five minutes
or so there would be an uncanny silence; then came the peculiar crump-crump
sound of a bomb bursting. The silence in the cellar was broken by Mr McLeod
shouting, “Don’t worry! If you hear it drop, you’re quite safe.” I thought it
was a daft thing to say. Mrs Mason started singing “Roamin’ in the Gloamin’. Uncertainly at first, we all joined in;
other old favourites followed, including a full-throated rendering of Harry
Lauder’s famous “Keep Right on to the End of the Road”, which drowned out the
noise of the dropping bombs. Soon we were all feeling more relaxed: the lads
were laughing over a game of Snakes and Ladders and the baby was fast asleep.
Even the old couple were smiling.
At last the All Clear
sounded. The young ones, off their marks like a shot, bounded up the stairs;
the rest followed more sedately, all ready to hit the hay.
Next morning I went
out and was appalled at the devastation: whole streets of houses flattened,
just piles of broken stones and slates. Fires were still burning and the air
was grey, the smell cindery. In the distance I could see slates cascading down
from the roof of a tenement which was still standing. I met an Air Raid Warden,
looking haggard.
“Plenty
of flak from Jerry last night, eh!” he said.
“Worst
job - searching for dead bodies – not like the usual dead bodies, mind –
terrible sight.”
He shuddered.
I said,
“You’re doing a great job – not many could stand it.
How
about the shipyards?” I asked.
“Not bad, I hear,
though
“Wonder if there’s
much point in taking shelter”, I said. “Anyway, what’s the point of it all –
destroy places like shipyards and kill as many ordinary people as possible?”
“The idea is to
terrify people”, he said, “so that we give in, though not much chance of that,
with our Bulldog at the top! Anyway, our lot would be over the German cities
last night, hitting their targets, I hope.”
I walked back home,
sad to see those well-built sandstone tenements biting the dust as it were.
CALLED TO THE COLOURS
The year was 1941 –
the year the Act for Conscription of Women was passed. As the war took its
toll, more reinforcements were needed in the Forces, especially the Army, so
women (aged 19-31), unmarried, with no children and in an unreserved
occupation, would be needed to fill the breach – hence the Act.
I knew I was ‘for it’
as I fulfilled all the Act’s requirements. After the first reaction, I felt
pleased to be doing something for the war effort. Not so my mother, who felt,
justly, hard done by. In the Great War she’d lost two young brothers; and my
father, as a result of his injuries, had a permanent limp. Just 21 years later,
her two sons had to go to war (one sweated it out in
The problem for me was
which group of the women’s forces to join. The government were very keen to
enrol more ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) to
help the Armed Forces but I’d no desire to ‘go square bashing’, salute my
superiors or wear that most unbecoming khaki uniform. I’d have liked the WRNS
or, failing that, the WAAF, but no joy – they’d
closed ranks as the Army had the greatest need. So it was suggested that I join
the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), which was
attached to the RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps). You
couldn’t be conscripted into that group. The downside was that there were no
‘freebies’, as was the case with the other women’s forces: they not only
received uniforms but also underwear, night attire, toiletries etc. Also, if
you had any skills, promotion was swift. In the VAD,
promotion was minimal, except for pharmacists or those in charge of the
financial side of things in a hospital. I heard of only two VAD
corporals. Of course, there were Commandants – they were members of the Upper
Class and did most of the organisation in the Detachments. Like those
volunteers in Ambulance or Red Cross groups who didn’t have to work for a
living, they were the first to be called up.
The decision taken,
before I could be enrolled into the VAD, I had to
attend classes in First Aid and Home Nursing, in which I had to qualify before
I could be accepted. I well remember feeling my way gingerly by feeble
torchlight (it was not permitted to be brighter than a glimmer) through the
darkened streets of
I passed the exams all
right but, alas, all I can remember of Home Nursing now is how to make
‘hospital corners’ when making beds and in First Aid never to give a wounded
man anything to drink.
Once in uniform, I was
always terrified when travelling by road or train in case I was summoned to
help in the event of an accident. So a fat lot of good my elementary training
in First Aid did for me!
Came the fateful interview
with the Red Cross Commandant for my area. She was a formidable woman, in her
fifties, I think, with a cut-glass accent and basilisk-like stare with which
she fixed me most of the time, except at intervals when she bared her teeth in
what she might have believed was an encouraging smile, but which switched on
and off like an electric light. I was taken aback when she addressed me by my
surname and asked why I had chosen to join the VAD. I
told her I didn’t want to be attached to any of the combatant services. I
wanted instead to help the sick and wounded. This was only half true, as I’d no
real desire to be a nurse. I told her I had secretarial skills, and she said,
“Good, we can use you then in a clerical capacity in the hospitals.” So ended my interview on a positive note. I later discovered
that the VAD service consisted not only of nurses,
but also cooks, dispensers, ambulance drivers and clerks.
My call up papers
arrived on
I was billeted in 17th
Century Blackie House on the Royal Mile, fairly near the Castle. It was a tall,
grim building with many stone flights of stairs up to our sleeping quarters. It
had a fortress-like atmosphere and was bitterly cold (no central heating then!)
It reminded me of the grim castles I’d read about in Gothic romances.
At the Hospital I had
my first experience of nursing as a VAD, which meant
we were just skivvies. We were never allowed by the QAs (Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps) to
do any real nursing, no matter how elementary. They looked down their noses at
us and we were given menial jobs – I seemed to spend all my time emptying
bedpans and bottles. I was reminded of the similar experience of Vera Brittain in her “Testament of
Youth”, about life as a VAD in the Great War.
Fortunately, this
initiation period didn’t last long – about six weeks, I think, after which I
was thrilled to be told I was being sent to
When we got to Aviemore station, I stuck my head
out of the window and took in great gulps of the pine-smelling air. Lucky me, I
thought – to be stationed in
My destination was the
CRS (Camp) in Cameron Barracks, a few miles from
Not having any
sisters, it took quite a bit of getting used to, sleeping in a large room with
strange females – characters every one. The lack of privacy irked me greatly at
first – that and the divided camp: the nurses and the clerks kept up a running
battle, reminding me of the Angela Brazil girls’ school stories I used to read
in my childhood. Being a newcomer, I didn’t take sides and was accused of
running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. Very soon, however, the
troublemakers were posted away, things settled down and I came to greatly enjoy
the camaraderie of my fellow VADs.
We had only one bathroom
for all eight girls, so were forced to share the bath (one at each end!) It
shows my ignorance of the naked female form (let alone the male one!) when I
was tickled pink to see, during a bathing session, my red-haired room-mate’s
bright red fluff of pubic hair.
A word about our food:
it was pretty monotonous, not very appetising, as you can imagine. But,
although our meals were not of cordon bleu standard, our VAD
cook made imaginative use of the provisions she was given. I shall always
remember the hard ‘dog’ biscuits we were glad to eat as a change from bread.
How we longed for some chocolate ones!
It was not long after
our arrival, during our
Our office in
I remember a sad case
of a Chaplain who, on his rounds, travelled on a motorbike from camp to camp.
It seemed that as he approached a village or town he would stop and expose
himself to any female who happened to see him. Pretty innocuous behaviour, you
might think, but he was reported to the authorities and eventually his case
landed on the Psychiatrist’s desk. It was thought he might be cured by
psychiatric treatment but, in the event, it was decided to dismiss him from the
Army – a very unfortunate business for his wife and family!
Of course, there were
‘homos’ and ‘pansies’ in the Army and, if found out, they got short shrift from
the top brass, no matter how efficient they might be as soldiers.
Off-duty we had a
ball. Girls were thin on the ground in Cameron Barracks so you needn’t be a
‘bobby dazzler to get plenty of partners at the dances – there were no
wallflowers there. We danced almost every night or went to concerts where the
stars of screen and stage entertained us. Sometimes we were taken in those
great lumbering trucks (how they shook you up!) to the other camps in the area.
I liked all the dances, particularly the waltz and, surprisingly, the tango
(though I was no dab hand at that). The tango tune was a haunting melody called
‘Jealousy’ and it sticks in my mind even to this day. Other songs popular then
were “Shine on Harvest Moon up in the Sky” and (one of my favourites) “It’s a
Lovely Day Tomorrow” – the idea was to cheer you up when you were ‘browned
off’.
We were spoiled rotten
by the Quartermaster-Sergeant (the top non-commissioned officer) who saw to it
that we got delicacies occasionally, denied to us in our day-to-day fare. This
was a big contrast to the NAAFI where, if you were lucky, you might get a fried
egg swimming in baked beans and a chokingly dry sponge cake with a scrap of
icing on top.
Of course, if you were
a real ‘honey’ like our VAD Dispenser, with her
black, curly hair and sapphire blue eyes, you wouldn’t need to put up with such
plebeian fare: the officers were lining up to take her out, and one she was
friendly with for a time, a Dermatologist (a Major) regularly took her to
Inverness’s poshest
restaurant, the Caledonia. Very occasionally, the rest of us Cinderellas saved up our pennies
and splashed out on a meal at the “Cally”,
as it was called.
At Christmas time, the
Cameron Officers came up trumps, giving a bumper meal in their mess, where they
waited on us hand and foot and treated us right royally.
Off duty, at weekends
in spring and summer, we would cycle down Loch Ness (no Nessie then) to Drumnadrochit, a village as
Shortly after we’d
settled in, the Matron gave us an informal, quick, picturesque talk on, of all
subjects, emotional relationships. Here’s an account of what she said, as far
as I remember it:
“nubile
girls, such as you (she explained ‘nubile’ as meaning marriageable) are meeting
in work and play with male predators lurking in the undergrowth.” We laughed at
that description. “It behoves you girls to be on your guard. Remember that some
of these married men, away from their wives’ eagle-eyes, are having a whale of
a time – they’re making hay while the sun shines, knowing they can easily get
out of an awkward situation – the Army can always provide a useful bolt hole.
You’ll have to be on the lookout for young bachelors with their ‘easy come,
easy go’ philosophy. Some of them might be RAF pilots, nightly risking their
lives, so don’t allow yourselves to be bowled over by them, no matter how
sympathetic you might feel.”
I think, looking back,
Matron should have mentioned there are female predators about too, ready to
seduce innocent males, provided they’ve got the necessary wherewithal. Maybe
she wouldn’t think any of her girls were like that.
Anyway, her spiel was
a warning shot across the bows, as it were, as most of us were inexperienced in
sexual matters. Even so, although the Pill was yet to be invented, and sex
lessons were not given at school or at home, there were surprisingly few
pregnancies among the VAD or ATS
girls.
I had some experience
of a male predator in the guise of an RAF officer (ground staff) whom I met at
a dance in the Barracks. He was a Londoner, older than me, handsome,
smooth-tongued and knew how to treat a girl. Though I enjoyed his company, I
never thought of him as a possible boyfriend. At one point, our short, 5-day,
leaves coincided and he invited me to go with him to
Then there was the
story of one of the nurses wooed quite assiduously by a Cameron officer. He
admitted he was married but spun the well-worn tale that his wife didn’t
understand him and, when the war was over, they intended to divorce, and
then…… Eventually, he gave her a book of Keats’s poetry and on the flyleaf
were written the famous last 4 lines of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
Here
with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of
Verse – and Thou
Beside me singing in the
Wilderness –
And Wilderness is
All very romantic, we
thought. Perhaps there was genuine feeling here, after all – who knows? After
he’d gone, their correspondence soon lapsed. For a time, she was pretty
miserable, until she acquired a replacement.
So, in this emotional
business, inevitably there would be some heartache but, on the whole, I don’t
recall any bones being broken and, as the saying goes, (in another context, of
course) it was a learning curve for many young, inexperienced VADs who had been let down.
You may well ask if we,
in our peaceful neck of the woods, ever wondered how our forces were faring in
the theatres of war outside our island. We were, of course, intensely
interested, but frustrated as news filtered through only slowly, and with
little detail.
We did hear a lot
about the war in
By July 1943, the
Italians had surrendered after losing
In the summer of 1943,
I was suddenly sent for to go to a camp reception station in Strathpeffer, a spa town some
miles north of
We were billeted in a
nice villa and I was to be in temporary charge of the office and all that
entailed. It seemed to me that my work as Psychiatrist’s secretary could be
left in abeyance for 6 weeks while this office job, clearly regarded as more
urgent, was tackled. There certainly was plenty to do. The telephone never
stopped ringing; correspondence to be read and replied to; provisions ordered
from HQ; repairs in the hospital to be seen to – never a dull moment! However,
I thoroughly enjoyed the change.
I managed, too, to
have a look at the glorious countryside around Strathpeffer.
1944 was a momentous
year. It was on 6th June that the long awaited D Day arrived and the
invasion of
I must say I missed my
bicycle and the very busy life of work and play I’d had in
The work in Hawick CRS was quite interesting
but not as taxing as it had been in
Back in Hawick, on my days off, I was
taken by car to view the landscape of Tweeddale. Generally, the scenery is very
pretty but undramatic
compared with the wild mountainous regions of Argyll and Invernesshire.
I got on well with the
staff at the CRS and when I left I was presented with a navy-blue, hand-knitted
sweater of lovely soft wool, direct from the mill.
UNDER THE RED CROSS
BANNER -
In November, I think
it was, I left
I looked forward to
this new challenge and to meeting with a new group of VADs. I wasn’t disappointed. There were 25 VADs in the group and a jolly lot
they were. The Course was very arduous: we had to take notes galore and learn
new medical terms (and had to be able to spell them) and work in the Lab
handling instruments (with gloves, of course) and learning their use. I
wondered if we’d be allowed to watch an operation but that wasn’t included in
our schedule. It was all extremely interesting and as it didn’t involve nursing
as such, suited me very well. There was, of course, an examination at the end
of the course (a lot of swotting needed for that); Edith, one of the friends
I’d made, and I came out on top. Edith became a lifelong friend and I lost her
only 18 months ago, in 2002. While on the Course, we went for
a weekend to
By Christmas, we were
still in our ‘digs’ in Fleet, a rather pretty Hampshire town near Aldershot But
the townspeople showed scant interest in us and we were not invited to any
social functions during the festive season. We took a poor view of that. Such a
lack of hospitality, especially at Christmas, would never have happened in
By January 1945, I was
on the move again, this time to
St Hugh’s College (a
woman’s college), where I worked, had been converted into a military hospital
for head injuries. I could appreciate the beauty of the building but the work
there was of such a melancholy nature that my spell there became the turning
point of the war for me – it was the saddest part of my 4 years’ service with
the RAMC. The soldiers with head injuries were
brought to St Hugh’s from the nearest airport, at Brize Norton. For the first time, it was vividly
brought home to me the terrible cost of getting rid of Hitler, one of History’s
worst tyrants. I’ll never forget these very young men (most of them hadn’t even
reached their prime) being wheeled into the Medical Reception Room; their heads
were shaven and pitted all over with little black shrapnel pellets embedded in
the skin. These were the paraplegics, never likely to walk again, confined to
wheelchairs for the rest of their lives. Others, wounded but able to walk with
two sticks, filed haltingly into the room. An orderly would go round inspecting
the groups and, if he thought anyone was down in the dumps (as many were), he would stick a cigarette in his mouth.
The work was very
interesting but onerous (was I glad of my Clinical Clerk’s training!) and kept
me on my toes. One doctor, I recall, praised my spelling of difficult medical
terms. I felt really ‘chuffed’.
The other famous
colleges I did manage to see were, undoubtedly, handsome edifices but, deprived
of their usual purpose, seemed to me to have a woebegone air.
I don’t remember being
uplifted or in any way entertained in
UNDER THE RED CROSS
BANNER -
So I was glad when, in
February, I received my first posting overseas. After receiving the usual
injections, I was surprised to be kitted out with a khaki battle dress and
boots but allowed to retain my VAD cap. I felt as if
I was being prepared for service in the field. I had to pose for a photograph
and cannot say I was enamoured to see myself in that get up. When we lined up
on the dock at
At
The Army food was well
nigh uneatable, much worse than any we’d had in
Our Commanding Officer
listened to our complaints and was most apologetic. The upshot was that we were
soon moved to a bright new sanatorium, surrounded by a big garden in a nice
part of the town.
The VADs there were all English and I
soon made new friends of my roommates – Barbara and Stella, both clerks.
The summer months in
In time, the three of
us acquired, if not boy friends, escorts. Barbara had quite a serious
friendship with a sergeant she worked with, while Stella and I palled up with
two Army Military Police Officers – huge fellows. They were both married but,
while wanting some female company, thought it politic to go around in a
foursome. This suited us very well as they took us around in their Jeep to
various places of interest in the area. Glyn
and Hew, both Welshmen, worked with a Frenchman who was an interpreter, and his
family invited all four of us to their flat in
In June came the
wonderful news that
“O
wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us to see
oursels as others see us!”
It’s just as well, I
often think, that none of us have that gift.
That period in
Even though the war
with
There was plenty of
evidence in the town of the terrible destruction resulting from the battle.
Worse was to come when
we arrived in
We were amazed to see
human figures emerging, like troglodytes, from their underground holes, trying
to carry on some kind of existence – evidence, if any were needed, of man’s
unquenchable spirit, his desire to go on living in spite of the loss of nearly
all that makes life worth living. So this is what highly civilized people, like
Britain and Germany, do to each other, I thought, but then we’ve always known
about man’s inhumanity to man.
A nice contrast we
found when we arrived at our destination, a former sanatorium in the spa town
of
As was to be expected,
the town’s inhabitants were frozen-faced as you passed them by – never a smile
or a ‘guten morgan’.
In any case, we were not allowed to fraternise with the Germans, and if any VAD or ATS girl wanted to see a
film outside the camp, she had to have at least one male escort. If a number of
girls wanted to have a drink at the Bier Keller up the hill, a posse of soldiers
had to accompany them.
We were very busy
receiving casualties from the battlefield – the cessation of hostilities
involved much clearing up. I’d always had good relations with the doctors I’d
worked with but, for the first time, I crossed swords with the young doctor (a
lieutenant) to whom I was secretary for a time. I thought he was a ‘bit wet
behind the ears’ and lacked confidence. Previous doctors had always dictated
their notes (I was, after all, a shorthand writer) but this chap gave me his notes
written in the most crabbed handwriting – quite illegible. I told him so but he
refused to dictate, saying pharmacists had no difficulty with his
prescriptions. I refrained from pointing out that a pharmacist’s training and
experience could not be compared to mine. So we came to an impasse and I
suggested he got himself another secretary. This was not so easy to do, so he
came up with a compromise – he would print his notes. I thought this was daft
and time-consuming. However, from then on we managed to have a fairly amicable
relationship.
After a few weeks, I
was promoted, becoming secretary to the Ophthalmologist (a major). I found this
a very satisfying job in many ways. Unfortunately, on one occasion, I blotted
my copybook, an incident I won’t forget in a hurry. After the Clinical Clerks’
Course at
Apart from that
episode, life in the camp was very pleasant, with lots to see and do in our off
duty hours. There were the usual nightly dances and ENSA
concerts. Those interested in orchestral concerts, like me, were taken on
several occasions to the town of
Looking back on my
four years’ Army service, I think it is remarkable there was, on the whole, so
little trouble in these camps where the sexes lived and worked side by side. It
could be that we were fortunate in being members of the medical service. I
don’t know. However, I wonder if a breakdown of order could have taken place in
the camps in Germany because there was seldom enough to do in the evenings and
movement outside was, necessarily, severely restricted. The reason for my
speculation is an incident that did occur at our Bad Oeynhausen HQ. It concerned a sergeant who had a
crush on a VAD nurse. He was a loud-mouthed,
overbearing sort and she had no time for him. She would dance with him once or
twice of an evening but refused to go out with him. (It was considered not only
bad-mannered but also unwise to refuse to dance with a chap unless he was
behaving offensively or his dancing left a lot to be desired.)
On this particular
evening the sergeant was ‘half seas over’ and much the worse for wear. He asked
the nurse, with a nod towards the dance floor,
“Dancin’?”
“No,”
she said curtly and turned her back on him.
This movement clearly
got on his wick and he half staggered towards her.
“I want you, y’know – careful I don’t pounce
on you,” he said and made a further movement towards her as she edged away from
him.
“You’re
out of bounds, sergeant,” she said, trying to laugh the whole thing off.
“So a
sergeant’s not good enough for you,” he sneered.
She made to walk
quietly away but he grasped her arm and pulled her roughly towards him. By this
time, she was a bit frightened and tried to shake him off but he put both arms
firmly round her waist and pulled her towards him, attempting to kiss her.
I was standing nearby
and called out,
“Watch
your step, sergeant. Just think! This will be a turn up for the book.”
He glared at me and
told me to push off (and other abusive language), but by this time the noise
was attracting unwanted attention from some other ranks, who ridiculed him with
shouts of,
“Not
quite up to it, sergeant, eh?”
This was enough to
make him stop in his tracks and release the nurse. He pulled himself together
somehow and shakily took himself off. I wondered what his punishment would be –
if a first offence and he was drunk, then perhaps not too severe. In the event
he was given ‘jankers’,
which was the humiliating punishment of having to peel potatoes outside the
kitchen in full view of passers-by. I can’t remember for how long he had to
carry out this punishment. All I know is he no longer pestered the nurse. In a
way he was lucky not to have been stripped of his 3 stripes or, worse, spend
time in the ‘clink’ – locked up in other words, though I think such a
punishment would have been an overreaction. I’m pretty certain the sergeant’s
mess would not have had much sympathy for the hapless lady, as the VADs were not their flavour of
the month. In their eyes we were a snooty lot who gave their favours only to
the ‘Pips’ (officers). I found that you had to handle the sergeants with kid
gloves; they wielded quite a lot of power and could make life unpleasant for
you if you got on their wrong side.
With the Japanese
surrender in 1945, VJ Day was celebrated but in a
much more subdued way than for VE Day. The war was
ending with a whimper, not a bang. The final few weeks of my sojourn in Bad Oeynhausen were a winding down
process. A call went out for volunteers who had some knowledge of a particular
subject or skill who would be prepared to teach it to anyone interested (in
their off-duty time, of course) – chess, bridge, languages etc. I offered
to teach the rudiments of shorthand and a number of lads (no girls) turned up
to find out how to take down notes swiftly and easily. I think they found the
subject quite fascinating but were surprised that to master it required time,
dedication and hard work.
My demob date was
fixed for
My homecoming to
I wondered how long it
would take to get used to
“From
you have I been absent
in the spring” [Sonnet 94]
Now summer had come, the war was over and a
new life beckoned – in
© E S Bateson