Story from a Hebridean Bart's Nurse

This is a story from Helen MacKinnon(now MacDonald) who came from the Isle of South Uist in the Western Isles of Scotland to do her SRN training at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital — Bart’s — in 1939.
Preliminary training had to take place in Northwood, Middlesex as London was considered to be so unsafe. The main hospital of Bart’s was transferred to Hill End Hospital, St. Alban’s, for the duration but all the nurses in training had to go backwards and forwards to London in order to be familiar with the main hospital and training school. Of course, even in St. Alban’s one was never far from bombs falling and resulting casualties. Two or three times a week , casualties would be brought up from London — both civilians and servicemen — in convoys of Green Line coaches that had been turned into ambulances.

“ I shall never forget the morning I answered the telephone on Luke Ward. To my horror, I realised that the caller was the Matron, Miss Helen Day. She asked for me by name and told me that I was to come to her office immediately and not wait to change my apron! Any nurse of that generation will understand how apprehensive I was at receiving such a request!! Firstly, the Matron hardly ever spoke to the ward staff and secondly, aprons always had to be changed and clean aprons worn when reporting to the offices of the Matron or Assistant Matrons.

When I arrived at the Matron’s office in a complete state of panic, wondering what on earth I had done wrong, I was surprised to find two nurses already waiting having received the same message as myself. We were soon joined by another two nurses. None of us had any idea why we were there!

Eventually, we were called in by the Matron. There she told us that we were to represent the hospital when the invasion took place. We were sworn to complete secrecy and told to go and pack a case with what we thought we would need for about a month. We then had to go back to our wards and not mention anything to anyone. As time went on we all began to get a bit relaxed about the whole thing as nothing seemed to be happening. Consequently, I started taking things out of the case when I wanted to wear them!

The week-end before the invasion (as it turned out), the six of us were suddenly moved from our current wards and sent to different ones. We later realised that this was done for security reasons as we would not be so readily missed. On the Monday morning, when I checked in for breakfast, the night sister told me that I was not to return to the ward but was to report to the Matron’s office at nine o’clock.

Realising that something was going to happen I returned to my room and hastily repacked my case! Then I reported to the office to find the same group waiting as before. On this occasion we were not kept waiting so long!! We were then given a pep talk by Matron about remembering our professional dignity etc. etc.!!!!! Matron had received word from the War Office that her nurses were not, in fact, going to the beaches as had been originally requested as there were plenty of First Aiders there. Instead, we were to go to a receiving hospital where the casualties were being sent for major surgery.

We were all transported in a small van with all its windows blacked out and it seemed that we were never going to get there! The journey was absolutely interminable. My mind has now gone a complete blank (old age!) and I have now forgotten the name of the hospital to which we were sent — although it may have been Guildford. I have also forgotten the names of the other nurses except for the one in charge of us who was a Nurse Pridham. She was a very nice girl, I remember!

When we got there we had to be seen by the Matron of that hospital who wasted no time in asking if any of us had theatre experience. As I only had very limited theatre experience I kept quiet. I would much rather have been on a ward anyway! However, it did not take her long to discover from my Bart’s notes that I had done some theatre work and to my disappointment I was sent to the theatre, where I acted as a junior.

After a few weeks, things quietened down and I was able to work on the wards, before returning to Bart’s some five or six weeks later. During our stay, five of us received word that we had passed our final state exams and were now SRNs.

On our return to London, we naturally thought that the war was over and that we had seen the last of air raid warnings, landmines and bombs, but of course this was not to be…

Needless to say, when we got back all our friends were somewhat peeved that they had not been let in on our secret!

I have been persuaded to write this by my daughter and I hope that this may trigger some memories for others! On July 9th 2005 I was invited to attend the ceremony in Whitehall of the unveiling by the Queen of the memorial to the women of WW2.”

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