Page 47 - QARANC Vol 18 No 1 2020

The Gazette QARANC Association 45
We were spoiled but we worked hard and took our off-duty when able. The Mess was near-by and where I learned to eat ‘proper’ curry! We learned a few phrases of Urdu coming over on the ship.
Most of our patients were Indians, including Gurkhas, but there was an ENT ward for British soldiers. They had all been fighting in Burma. On day duty we wore white dresses and our fly-away caps, but on ‘nights’ we wore khaki trousers and shirts, to avoid mosquitoes.
My first few months in the hospital were on the medical wards, and then I was given the maxillary-facial ward where there were some very sad cases.
Lady Louis Mountbatten visited the hospital, and I suppose, because the Max Fax ward was a little different, she came to see us. I was introduced to her and she toured the ward with the matron, surgeon and me in tow.
Near the hospital there was a small village with stalls and tent type coverings. One could buy ‘odds and ends’ but in Secunderabad we could buy material and have dresses
Sandy
Marshall
Le Pla (nee
Fraser)
21 January 1946 – 20 August 2019
Sandy Marshall Le Pla dedicated much of her life to nursing, with numerous adventures including a career in the Army, running a canal boat restaurant, and politics.
Born in 1946 to James Fraser and his wife Margaret Fairbairn, she grew up in Wishaw in Lanarkshire alongside her brother John, living beside the family joiners’ business. She trained as a nurse at The Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow and on qualifying as a Registered Nurse, was commissioned into the QARANC in 1967. Her first posting as a Lieutenant was to BMH Hong Kong, from where she spent a number of years enjoying the opportunity to travel around Asia.
made very cheaply. We nurses bought cycles because, as nurses, we were not allowed to travel on buses with the natives, and the taxis were too expensive for our meagre salaries. This was the only way for us to visit Secunderabad and explore the countryside. It was not much fun cycling in the heat and when the monsoons came they were almost welcome. You became wet very quickly but then you dried out quickly as well.
On Wednesday and Saturday evenings there was always dancing at a near-by officers club and there was never a shortage of an escort.
Following some months on day duty, I went on to nights on the same ward. On my first night I was attacked by a patient with a knife. This resulted in a facial wound to me and one to my right hand. My trousers saved me from anything worse as I was able to kick. My screams brought help from a near-by ward as my Indian orderlies had disappeared. I learned later that the patient had nothing against me personally – I never thought that he
had. I think it was severe depression following his dreadful facial wounds. Soon after this happened he attacked his guard.
Following sick leave, I returned to the same ward but on day duty and then a month or so later I was posted to Avadi, twenty miles from Madras. The hospital was surrounded by rough land and there was little in the form of transport. The war was now over.
Living quarters were less resplendent, we had basha huts. These are made of mud and grass and where it was nothing to see rats running up and down the supporting posts.
The mess was good – the food also. Off duty was pretty boring as it was difficult to get to Madras and there was nothing to do in Avadi.
I was put on a British Officers’ Ward and later had to open up another ward for officers where I stayed until my discharge in 1946, which I requested, as I had by then married an officer in Secunderabad. We returned to England in 1947 and finally settled in Cardiff with our three children.
Sandy Marshall Le Pla as a young QA Lieutenant