Page 46 - QARANC Vol 14 No 13 2016

44 QARANC THE GAZETTE
Corps Heritage Matters
The QARANC Association Heritage Sub-Committee continues to meet regularly, although some changes in membership meant the July 2016 meeting had to be cancelled. We welcome CPL Cath Pounder QARANC, a reserve nurse from Glasgow, as a new member of the committee. Cath will be carrying out some work to start a database of books, articles and published research which will be made available on the website.
As mentioned in the last Gazette, we will be starting on our oral history project in the summer of 2016 with help of Marilyn Williams from the Welsh Branch. Marilyn has kindly identified elderly retired members of the Corps who are willing to share their memories. As yet, a decision has not been reached on how these recordings will be stored and to what extent they will be made freely available to researchers and other interested parties. We hope to run a short course on oral history for Association members who are interested in being involved in the project. Please do let us know, through RHQ, of any retired QAs who would be willing to give us a few hours of their time to record their Army nursing experiences. We will treat all information sensitively, and will work to an defined protocol, where consent is freely given to the recording and can be withdrawn at any time.
The annual research colloquium of the United Kingdom Association for the History of Nursing took place on 11 July 2016 in the Rawlinson Hall, Robertson House (the former Army Staff College) at RMA Sandhurst. The theme for the colloquium was ‘Nursing in Times of Conflict’. Papers were presented by academics and independent researchers with contributors travelling from Canada and Israel as well as from the UK. Some 35 delegates were in attendance, including Association trustees and members of the Heritage
Delegates to the United Kingdom Association for the History of Nursing Annual Colloquium; Robertson House, RMA Sandhurst, 11 July 2016
Committee, and we enjoyed the opportunity to attend an event in a venue somewhat different to the usual university lecture hall. Lt Col (Rtd) Dr Keiron Spires, Chair of the Heritage Committee, gave the keynote address entitled ‘Inside the tent looking out’. He argued that for too long academic researchers have tended to ignore the view of Army nurses on their own history, peering ‘into the tent’ from outside seeking evidence that is just not there and rather bemoaning the fact that even if an Army nurse kept a diary, it tended to have very little in it about nursing care. Keiron drew on his own experiences on active service in Northern Ireland and Iraq to illustrate that Army nurses rarely write home about their clinical work whilst on active service, because much of it is just too awful to tell relatives about or even commit to paper. This dearth of ‘real’ evidence has given rise to a popular view that Army nursing (historically) was all about country walks, taking tea and going to parties! The consensus in the summing up was that researchers need to engage more with the Army nursing community to bring about a more balanced view.
Other papers covered a range of
historical nursing topics, and included presentations on facial reconstruction surgery in WW1, the regulation of Army and Navy nurses during the Napoleonic Wars, and an interesting presentation on male VADs in the First World War, who made up over 30% of the VAD workforce. There was an enlightening presentation from an Israeli nurse manager on the treatment of civilian casualties from an adversary country, which showed us that nursing is universal, crosses boundaries and is always compassionate.
The Heritage Committee was saddened to hear of the death of Sue Light, an ex QA, who ran Scarlet Finders and The Fairest Force websites, both devoted to Army nursing history. Sue had a great eye for detail and was adept at searching out obscure references. She was instrumental in the decision to place a Blue Plaque on the former home in Chelsea of Dame Emma Maud McCarthy, Matron in Chief on the Western Front during the First World War. It is hoped that her comprehensive websites can be preserved and will continue to be made available to researchers.
Please visit our website: www.britisharmynurses.com. The site is updated regularly as more information becomes available.
For details of British Army nurses buried or commemorated in Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemeteries please visit: www.cwgc.org. You can search for a named individual or a cemetery.
Maj (Rtd) Alison Spires TD QARANC Association Heritage Committee
Lost Friends – Ann French
Does anyone know the whereabouts of Ann French who joined the Corps in the 1960s? An old friend is trying to track her down
Please respond to regtsecqaranc@hotmailcom for further information