Another moment of serendipity! We purchased a small collection of ephemera including letters written by a patient in a military hospital. It included a photograph of an Army nurse. Once we had a chance to look at everything we discovered he was Herbert Whitmore Bird, and that he was writing home to his mother and his sisters. One of his sisters, Laurie Bird, is the nurse in the photograph. Sadly she died in 1919 of heart failure while working at the Sunderland War Hospital ... but we already know about her because she is buried at Brookwood Cemetery and is one of the nurses we are trying to get moved from the civil cemetery to the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery which adjoins it. ...
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We recently purchased an album of photographs of the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital Millbank. Just by chance there was a picture of the chapel. In this picture was a large silk banner depicting the badge of the QAIMNS. The banner itself is part of the QARANC Association Chattels and is in Robertson House at Camberley. One of the many objects we took over without knowing where it had come from .... well now we know! 😄 ...
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