Experiences of a nurse in wartime

My father was a chartered accountant working in France. He was there in about 1910. We were all born in France.

In January 1940 I was sent to England to train as a nurse at Kings College Hospital. Having been to a French school and obtaining by diplomas there I was glad to be in England but I really found the ‘culture shock’ difficult. Some months later the pre-war Munich episode persuaded my father to move the family back to England. Soon after the outbreak of war most nurses from the hospital were evacuated to Epsom or Leatherhead. There we were in an empty mental hospital with no specific accommodation. Some managed o find beds, some found epileptic beds (just 1 foot high)! A chaise was a luxury; it was really Spartan living: gradually some obtained orange boxes to put beside their beds. It was months before we obtained more privacy and shared a chest of drawers and a locker.

So we went through the period of the ‘phoney war’ but soon we started receiving the casualties from Dunkirk. These poor men were in a terrible condition and had had no treatment for a whole week. We lacked equipment, linen and sterilisers — a fish kettle placed on a gas ring acted as a steriliser. Any attention given the patients was so frustrating — in trying to help them you became covered in pus and yet could not use clean sheets that were not available!

Later we had daily arrivals from London during the Blitz and the wards were filling. However we were gradually becoming more organised. The main benefit for me at the time was that instead of only 2 days off per month we became entitled to 1 day off per week — My health improved!!

My parents and sisters had moved to a suburban town in Kent. Once on a visit home I stepped of the bus and I was walking on broken glass. There was a dogfight going on overhead. As I walked up the road I was encouraged by many neighbours to go inside their house — there was great help and concern from everybody during the war.

Another time I was at home when the usual air raid alarm sounded — soon the lights went out, some crockery got smashed, some windows fell in and the front door just lay flat in the garden. My sisters, parents and Chang the dog all slept under a Morrison shelter in the dining room but I decided that sleep was impossible and spent the night sitting on the doorstep watching the City burning. It really was one large illumination with searchlights penetrating the sky.

On another occasion after a day off at home I tried to return to the hospital. By this time I was back I London at King’s College Hospital. The trains were not working and the station had had a hit and I wondered how I would get back when I was offered a lift to Dulwich. In those days everybody offered lifts and we were encouraged to do so by the government. This lift would take me half way but by the time I reached the hospital I was very late and expecting trouble! I was working in the operating theatre at the time. The operating theatre at Kings was now down in the basement where the porters quarters were. As I tried to reach the theatre I found I had to step over countless stretchers on the floor, all waiting their turn for operations etc… I decided to go straight into the theatre (not the recovery room) and was immediately greeted by sister who said ‘ oh nurse, will you shave this patient’s leg’ and I was handed a cut-throat razor! I asked for a safety razor but was just told to ‘get on with it’! My late arrival had certainly not been noticed!!

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