BARNFATHER: Unsettling News
“Unsettling News”
September 1939, England
"England is at war with Germany." Ominous words broadcast by Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, on Sunday morning September 3, 1939. That message was heard by millions of people all over the world, and many and varied were their reactions. At home, the older generation who had not forgotten the First World War and all its horrors, heard the message with sinking hearts. They knew what it all meant - they had been through it all before. The horrors, the hardships, the lost lives and broken hearts, the shortage of food and other things which help to make life pleasant. Here we go again. God help us all. The younger people to whom the idea of war was something new and exciting, felt an anticipatory thrill of apprehension as well as an onrush of patriotism.
I heard the news in Gosport where I was living whilst working at the Royal Naval Hospital in Haslar. My feelings were mixed: excitement, thrill of the unknown, possible change of job. My landlady was very sensible. Her husband was a Regular Naval man and that meant total and immediate involvement and separation.
Being a Registered Nurse I had thought that my job in the naval hospital would have been secure, but not at all. There was a war on and the Royal Navy closed ranks against all civilians. So the other five nurses and myself, being civilians, were persona non grata and were told that our services were no longer required. This decision came down from the Admiralty and there was nothing that Matron could do about it, but she was very upset. She would have preferred to have retained us on her staff, especially as we had been trained to operate the anti-gas station in the hospital grounds.
However, we had to go, so we all went off to the ministry of pensions hospital at Cosham in North Portsmouth, and there we were all taken on staff without any trouble at all.
Since we were to be working together, we thought it would be a good idea to rent a small house and share expenses among us. One of the girls had just been married and her husband was to share the house too. I was already a member of the Territorial Army Nursing Service and knew that I was liable to be called up at any time, but I went along with the idea. My mobilisation papers reach me later that month with instructions to report forth with to No.7 Casualty Clearing Station at Tidworth Military Hospital in Hampshire. I packed my case, said goodbye as all round and set off for Tidworth.
Tidworth is a small Garrison town mostly occupied by military personnel and the hospital stands on the outskirts of the village.
At Tidworth station I was met by a Regimental Transport Officer and driven to the hospital where I reported to their sister in charge of No.7 C.C.S.then I was shown to my quarters – a bed, a bedside locker, and a chair all under canvas. I was surprised to say the least, but when I looked around I saw six more sets of furniture, so decided this must be where we were going to sleep. As it had been explained to me, there were seven nurses and a sister in charge in a C.C.S., so where was “Snow White's" bed? She was to sleep in the main building where the regular staff lived. We were welcome to use the mess, and it was here that I first met up with the Q.A. tradition of cider being served in the mess, either at lunch or at dinner on Sunday. Next day we were free to get to know each other and find our way around, but after that, it was to be work on the different wards so that we could learn the intricacies of army nursing. We each war our own uniform until such time as we could be supplied with the Q.A. Grey and Scarlet. For this we had to make two or three journeys to the Army tailor shop in London, where our uniforms would be made to measure. As we were scheduled to go overseas, we had to have inoculation against certain diseases which we were likely to encounter, the chief of these being typhoid fever, smallpox and tetanus.
Good weather held until late October and then it became so cold and damp that we had to be moved indoors. We moved into Tidworth House, a very old house with very large rooms, so that five of us sharing one room still had plenty of space to move. The other two shared a smaller room. The permanent staff also lived and had their mess in Tidworth House. They were regular Q.A.s, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service to give them there full title. As there was a war on, other units were added, the Territorial Army Nursing Service, known as T.A.N.S. and the Q.A. reserves. All the members of these various units were registered nurses.
The hospital buildings were very old, almost antidiluvian in structure. Each ward was reached by climbing up an iron outside staircase, and underneath the wards were storerooms. The operating theatre, and X-rays division, and pathological laboratory stood at some distance from the wards. At the end of each ward was the kitchen which posted an open black iron, cold burning stove in which burns are very small fire, on which set a large black iron kettle on which we depended for our morning ‘cuppa’. Fortunately, there were more modern methods for sterilising instruments and making hot compresses. On these words we learned Army methods which included rather a lot of paperwork. We also learned to work alongside male orderlies, soldiers in the Royal Army Medical Corps who were learning to be nurses. At least they were in peace time, but now some of the orderlies were in the R.A.M.C. because they were unfit for active service or chose a non-combatant role. Whenever we had to go to London for uniform fittings we had 48 hours leave. I was one of the lucky few whose homes were close to London, so I made the most of my opportunities.
For entertainment, there was a small cinema in the village and it used to show up-to-date films and was well patronised. We played mixed hockey on a Saturday afternoon which I enjoyed immensely.
There were three Australian nurses in my unit who were on a working tour of Europe when war broke out, so they immediately joined up in England. Twice these girls were lost for words and that’s saying something for an Australian. One lovely Saturday morning in late autumn, the local hunt went by. The horsemen were wearing their hunting pink jackets and white trousers, black caps black riding boots. Milling around about the horses hoofs were the hounds, each of which carried his short flag upright and his nose to the ground in anticipation of the scent of the fox they were out to flush. It was truly a sight to be seen. The next occasion was when snow began to fall and settle and became deep. These girls had never seen snow before and were traced. They stood with their nose is glued to the window, absolutely fascinated.
I had palled up with a girl from Wales, Vera Jones. We were the two youngest members of the unit both being members of the T.A.N.S .Being off duty we decided to go into Andover by bus. It was a bitterly cold day with snow about, and after an hour in a cold bus we were freezing. So we made our way into a pub and into the lounge where there was a huge fire burning. We sat as close to it as possible and gradually thawed out, helps via a whiskey mac.
When we felt able to face the elements again, we went shopping and V.J. bought a birthday present for me: a little silver St. Christopher medal on a silver chain, which travelled everywhere with me. After lunch we went to Winchester to have a look at the cathedral there. It is very old and very beautiful architecturally and boasts the tallest spire in England.
Soon more Army nurses arrived at Tidworth and these were to establish No.13 General Hospital somewhere overseas. Just as we were beginning to feel that we were becoming part of Tidworth for the duration, our movement orders arrived.
