 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
 |
I always wanted to be a nurse but my mother would not allow it as it would have meant living away from home, so I was delighted to find that the St John's Ambulance was forming a unit of volunteers from the Civil Service to help casualties of air raids. I joined immediately. A doctor from St Thomas's Hospital came and gave us lectures after work. When daylight raids finished I would leave work and go round with a doctor to administer first aid to casualties. I also did voluntary night duty which meant I stayed in Somerset House all night, only going out after an air raid. Much of what I saw was very traumatic. German bombers not only dropped high explosive, they also dropped incendiaries so I saw horrific injuries caused by both types of bombs. Nowadays I suppose I would have received post traumatic stress counselling because what I saw 60 years ago can still make me cry. Instead, I got a cup of tea when I got back to Somerset House and when I had drunk it I carried on with my normal work. It was the most terrible sight because many people were severely burnt. We had to take their clothes off, a terrible job because they stuck to the burns... In the early days of the Blitz, when the Germans were still flying daytime air raids, the Air Ministry in Kingsway took a direct hit from incendiaries. I immediately went there to help casualties. There were many people killed. Some by the bombs, others were blown out of windows. There were also many casualties, both from the Air Ministry and people in the street. I and a doctor from St Thomas's Hospital first treated people in the roadway and then we went inside the building with firemen to treat more of the injured there. We could only get some way into the ground floor because of the damage. It was the most terrible sight as many people were severely burnt. We had to take their clothes off, a terrible job because they stuck to the burns, and then paint them with a special liquid. These kinds of injuries were very frightening but I was all right while I was there, I just suffered later. One incident I always remember: after an air raid I was walking in Piccadilly Circus and there was broken glass everywhere as well as jagged remnants of shop windows still clinging to their frames. To my absolute horror, a large swordlike piece of glass fell from a window frame and hit a young woman just a few feet ahead of me and killed her on the spot. Not only did I feel for the woman killed, it also reminded me that I was not immortal, a few seconds later and it could have been me lying there. On another occasion, in the same area, a bomb fell just by the Regent Palace Hotel while I was nearby. Although the hotel wasn't directly hit, the blast blew a chambermaid out of a top floor window. I ran to help the casualties as did a doctor who, luckily, had his bag with him. We did what we could for the chambermaid. The doctor was fairly sure she had broken her back. In the absence of splints, we were trained to use rolled up newspapers. I ran into the hotel and got some and the doctor and I used them to immobilise the chambermaid. She was taken to hospital but, sadly, died. A pub had its windows blown out but all the drinking glasses and optics behind the bar were still intact. After that bomb dropped I saw the most surprising thing. A pub had its windows blown out but all the drinking glasses and optics behind the bar were still intact. Bombing produced those kind of amazing affects. It wasn't all tragedy, though. I was still a teenager (although teenagers hadn't been invented then!) and I enjoyed myself in spite of having very strict parents. I loved dancing but I had to be home by 9.30pm. Just like all young people, I found a way around the early curfew sometimes. When I did voluntary night duty for St John's I could go dancing at the London Lyceum Ballroom or the Hammersmith Palais before going on duty.
Because of the war, there was no shortage of handsome young men in uniform. There were all nationalities in London at the time: English, American, Canadian, Polish, French, and they all seemed to be good looking. Funnily enough, London was a much safer place for a young woman than it is now. Although there was the Blackout (all lights had to be blacked out so as not to guide German bombers to their target) and the infamous London peasouper fogs were common, I never heard of anybody being mugged or raped. Although, just like other people, I experienced horror and tragedy during the Second World War, I had a lot of fun and happy times too and can look back with nostalgia as well as sadness. Copyright © 2002 Joanne Shipway |
 |
| |||||||
 |
||
| All Info About London | ||
|
|
|
I
joined the Civil Service (Government employment) in 1940 in the
Ministry of Supply based in Somerset House situated right on the
River Thames in Central London, 