Page 45 - QARANC Vol 14 No 10 2015

Betty is a member of the Millbank Branch and at the age of 93 she came to my attention through a number of requests from HQ.
Have you any members who served in France following D-Day? The BBC was commemorating the 70 years since D-Day on June 6th 2014 and wanted to interview a nurse who had been there?
Have you any members who would be eligible to attend the Not Forgotten Association Garden Party at Buckingham Palace?
Have you any members who could be nominated to receive an Award on behalf of all the Brave nurses who took part in WWII? Best Magazine have for the past 16 years held awards recognising the Bravest Women who show courage and uncrushable spirit when faced with challenges and adversity that would break most people?
Each time a request came through I spoke to all the members who fitted the above criteria and asked their permission to submit their names to HQ.
Mrs Evans was one of only 2 in our Branch who had been in France following D-Day and Mariana from the BBC interviewed her at her home and this was broadcast on the 6th June 2014, as were many other Veterans who had endured that time of conflict and survived.
I asked Mrs Evans if she would tell me her story of how she enlisted and became a War Nurse, the following words portraying sadness, laughter, tears, happiness and the pragmatic way in which she describes her life and work through out are her story.
I started my training at Westminster Hospital in London the day after War was declared in 1939. Normally we would have had our Preliminary Training Lectures at the hospital one was to be trained but because of the war only a nucleus remained in London. We were told we would be going to Nettlebed !!! We had never heard of this place before and wondered where we could possibly be going to. (It was the home of Celia Johnson of Brief encounter fame and her Husband was Peter Fleming who was a writer and yes his brother was the famous Ian the creator of ‘James Bond’). Their home was called Joyce Grove House and Westminster and St Mary’s Paddington
Hospitals sent their student nurses there for their PTS lectures. Today the house belongs to the Sue Ryder group of Nursing homes.
Once back in London we started straight away on the wards. Then after a few months it was our turn to be evacuated and change places with colleagues who had been away from London. We were evacuated to Park Prewitt Hospital just outside Basingstoke.
Following a report by the Lunacy Commission this hospital was initially built to take care of the Mental patients from another hospital but because of the WWI this was delayed and was completed in 1917. The Canadian Forces used it as a military convalescent home up until 1919 and then from 1921 to 1936 this became the Psychiatric hospital for that area in Oxfordshire. During WWII this very large hospital was returned to Military use and staffed by the nurses from St Mary’s Paddington and St Thomas’ Hospitals.
I was working on Plastic Surgery and the surgeon was Sir Harold Gillies recognised for his pioneering work as Father of Plastic surgery. Whilst I was there in June 1940, the disaster of Dunkirk happened, it was a miracle that as many as 33 thousand were evacuated back to England. Rooksdown house the private wing of the asylum became the Plastic surgery unit.
We had many pilots who had been shot down in flames with dreadful burns so much had to be done, new faces, limbs and hands. Saline baths – seawater to prevented sepsis.
By 1944 I was a fully qualified nurse
and decided to join the QAIMNS as an Army Sister.
I joined 79th British General Hospital. We were told that we would be the first military mobile hospital to land in France after the planned D-Day invasions. So much preparation would have to be done. We had to learn to pitch tents, as all our wards would be under canvas. Instruments, equipment, packed labeled and numbered.
There was great secrecy - we could not let our families know where we were and all letters were censored.
Suddenly we were marshaled into a train and taken to Peebles in Scotland. We were in Nissan huts, with canvas baths and basins for washing in. Here started the ‘Toughening Up’ Process! We went on route marches, climbed mountains with steel helmets, packs on our backs and part of the training was tear gas bombs dropped and we very quickly had to put on our gas masks and of course keep going. Fortunately we were never exposed to any gas attacks during WWII. The Locals called us the “Lady Guerillas”.
In May we were moved from Scotland to a little village in Suffolk off the beaten track. We just had our canvas beds and a mattress filled with straw or on a good night we slept out in the open on just our bedrolls and blanket. We continued with our fitness training until we were suddenly moved down to Southampton. Spent one night in comfortable beds and the next morning we were boarding this large ship with many of the Troops ready to land in France that evening. We had a fairly smooth crossing even when we arrived near the coast we had to scramble into the landing craft
THE GAZETTE QARANC 43
Mrs Edwina (Betty) Evans MBE