FORESTRY:' MEASURING UP TIMBER
A WARD IN ENDELL STREET HOSPITAL,
Run exclusively by women.
DA ME KATHERINE F URSE WITH COMMANDER SIR R. W. BULKELEY, R.N. R.,
Inspect ing Officers of the W.R.N.S. drafted for Service
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/our-women-in-france-dsv0lvgd5?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_118&utm_medium=email&utm_content=118_February%2007,%202018&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2889024_118
Our women in France
Some of the women who worked at an ordnance office about a mile from the camp, had set out like soldiers that morning with their rations of “bully” and tea and sugar in their pack
It was a drizzling morning, wintry and wet, at a certain port in France. Crowds of men on leave carne off the boat and were met by the Military Landing Officer and sent to their destinations. A distinguished civilian or two, looking the worse for wear, slipped off, and then came the little company of WAAC’s, an officer at their head, neat in their warm khaki coats over their khaki coat-frocks, their stout brown shoes, and their new serviceable pull-on felt hats, each with her soldierlike pack on her neat back.
The WAAC Area Controller and the Disembarcation Officer came forward to welcome them; the NCO or forewoman of the group saw to the luggage, which was piled on an Army lorry by willing Tommies, and then in brick military formation, four deep, they marched off to the waterside hostel, an annexe to the Soldiers’ Institute, where a hot meal awaited them and where they were to stay the night. Already they had been made free of the soldiers’ buffets at home, and at the port from which they had sailed they had had their last meal in England at a soldiers’ restroom, where two “full” corporals hastened to wait on them, telling all whom it might concern that they were “the Waacs of France” - a friendly send-off to women starting off into a new and unknown life.
As they passed through the wistful French town poilus, with the hoods of their weather capes pulled over their caps, looked at them curiously, and an occasional Frenchwoman not yet used to the novelty of them glanced their way with a “comme elles sont gentilles, ces petites soldates.” Otherwise France took them as a matter of course. A night at the waterside hostel, sleeping on the floor on army “biscuits” - as they had already learned to call the military mattress - and then up betimes in the morning under orders only then revealed to them from one of the bases.
Some of them were cooks, some telegraphists, and a few motor-drivers. Through pleasant France, with its hedgeless, well-cultivated fields and here and there a poilu in “civvies” spending his leave cultivating his land, or a group of women gleaners sharply silhouetted against the sky; through country that wise Napoleon had planted with the economic tree; or through the cider-apple country they went their several ways to hostels or billets in historic towns or to great camps filled with the caterpillar-like Nissen huts.
STREETS OF HUTS.
A party was going to the farnous Queen Mary’s camp at the greatest base of all - and with them I came to spend a night in their camp. Little streets of huts stretched before us as we arrived, the pavement by them shielded from the weathers - for no WAAC may carry an umbrella - so that the business of life went on though the rain fell. Around the camp was a high barbed-wire fence. A warm and plentiful meal wvas ready for the new arrivals, the food being L of C (Lines of Communication) rations, the same as the men.
Their damp coats were taken and hung in the drying shed. In the distance they could hear the bugle calls from the men’s camp; from the YWCA hut near by the sounds of a Waac Company going through their 20 minutes’ weekly drill, and when it ceased it was followed by the tune of a well-known waltz played by one of the girls who had been writing letters at one of the YWCA writing tables. The women who had been drilling joined in and danced until soon after there came the camp call to supper, and then in their various ways the Waacs amused themselves until it was time to go to bed, some going out in groups to concerts for which they had passes.
The newcomers unpacked their possessions, turned out their four Army blankets, made up their beds, stood their footwear “at attention” facing the door, pinned up their family photos, put away their few possessions, for they travel mobile with as little luggage as a soldier, and then sat on their beds for a good talk with their room-mates or an impromptu party on parcels from home.
In the mess rooms supper was still going on. Some of the women who worked at an ordnance office about a mile from the camp, and had set out like soldiers that morning with their rations of “bully” and tea and sugar in their pack, as it was too far to come home to dinner, were having a late evening meal. In the sick-bay the VAD was dosing some of the Waacs who had pains due to parcels from home, or colds, or who had met with some minor accident.
At the administrators’ mess the women who hold the responsibility for the discipline and good conduct of the rank and file were relaxing after their strenuous day. They told with great pride of rations under-drawn, and money in lieu of them to be used for luxuries of fresh milk (only tinned is supplied as a ration), fruit, and vegetables for the girls. Extra money is also made by the saving of fat, which is sold for conversion into munitions. In a month £9 10s was made in one camp on this item.
The evening meal over, the administrators talk for a while on points arising out of the day’s work. In the Army. there are no such words as “I don’t know,” but the innovation of the Waac is constantly causing some such answer to problems that must be worked out by the base commandant in company with the unit administrators. Of all the administrators the letter censor has the most varying task, for the Waac writes two letters to the soldier’s one. She invited me to come with her to her Nissen hut with its cosy glowing French stove, while she went through her great basket of letters. The censoring, though the letters seemed to include two or three from every girl in the camp, was quickly done. The Censor’s basket gradually grew less, an administrator or two popped In to ask about passes for a concert to which the women were invited, another to raise a point of discipline, of complaints from a group of Waacs, whose forewoman marched them along the road instead of on the pavement, which they preferred, to their work. But as no foot-passengers could shop when a company of Waacs four abreast with a forewoman at intervals bore down on the town, the point was decided in favour of the forewoman.
The assistant administrator, with a genius for dietary and making the best of Army rations, left in a week’s diet sheet to be typed next day, and here it is. From the Chief Controller downwards all the women in camp live on rations, and while in camp I grew as fond as they were of Army fare. The censor’s basket was finally emptied. The tired AA turned in, and I too went back to my comfortable billet in a Nissen hut, and the little town fell asleep save for the watching guard.
Some of them were cooks, some telegraphists, and a few motor-drivers. Through pleasant France, with its hedgeless, well-cultivated fields and here and there a poilu in “civvies” spending his leave cultivating his land, or a group of women gleaners sharply silhouetted against the sky; through country that wise Napoleon had planted with the economic tree; or through the cider-apple country they went their several ways to hostels or billets in historic towns or to great camps filled with the caterpillar-like Nissen huts.
STREETS OF HUTS.
Their damp coats were taken and hung in the drying shed. In the distance they could hear the bugle calls from the men’s camp; from the YWCA hut near by the sounds of a Waac Company going through their 20 minutes’ weekly drill, and when it ceased it was followed by the tune of a well-known waltz played by one of the girls who had been writing letters at one of the YWCA writing tables. The women who had been drilling joined in and danced until soon after there came the camp call to supper, and then in their various ways the Waacs amused themselves until it was time to go to bed, some going out in groups to concerts for which they had passes.
The newcomers unpacked their possessions, turned out their four Army blankets, made up their beds, stood their footwear “at attention” facing the door, pinned up their family photos, put away their few possessions, for they travel mobile with as little luggage as a soldier, and then sat on their beds for a good talk with their room-mates or an impromptu party on parcels from home.
In the mess rooms supper was still going on. Some of the women who worked at an ordnance office about a mile from the camp, and had set out like soldiers that morning with their rations of “bully” and tea and sugar in their pack, as it was too far to come home to dinner, were having a late evening meal. In the sick-bay the VAD was dosing some of the Waacs who had pains due to parcels from home, or colds, or who had met with some minor accident.
At the administrators’ mess the women who hold the responsibility for the discipline and good conduct of the rank and file were relaxing after their strenuous day. They told with great pride of rations under-drawn, and money in lieu of them to be used for luxuries of fresh milk (only tinned is supplied as a ration), fruit, and vegetables for the girls. Extra money is also made by the saving of fat, which is sold for conversion into munitions. In a month £9 10s was made in one camp on this item.
The evening meal over, the administrators talk for a while on points arising out of the day’s work. In the Army. there are no such words as “I don’t know,” but the innovation of the Waac is constantly causing some such answer to problems that must be worked out by the base commandant in company with the unit administrators. Of all the administrators the letter censor has the most varying task, for the Waac writes two letters to the soldier’s one. She invited me to come with her to her Nissen hut with its cosy glowing French stove, while she went through her great basket of letters. The censoring, though the letters seemed to include two or three from every girl in the camp, was quickly done. The Censor’s basket gradually grew less, an administrator or two popped In to ask about passes for a concert to which the women were invited, another to raise a point of discipline, of complaints from a group of Waacs, whose forewoman marched them along the road instead of on the pavement, which they preferred, to their work. But as no foot-passengers could shop when a company of Waacs four abreast with a forewoman at intervals bore down on the town, the point was decided in favour of the forewoman.
The assistant administrator, with a genius for dietary and making the best of Army rations, left in a week’s diet sheet to be typed next day, and here it is. From the Chief Controller downwards all the women in camp live on rations, and while in camp I grew as fond as they were of Army fare. The censor’s basket was finally emptied. The tired AA turned in, and I too went back to my comfortable billet in a Nissen hut, and the little town fell asleep save for the watching guard.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/work-of-the-woman-doctor-75v33fb3j?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_118&utm_medium=email&utm_content=118_February%2007,%202018&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2889024_118
Work of the woman doctor
The military hospital in Endell Street is daily proving what women can do to repair the ravages of violence
Among the prejudices which the War has broken down is the prejudice against women doctors. The Church and the Law may still hold out, because the public demand for female ministers and female lawyers has not yet overwhelmed the barriers. The public need of female physicians and surgeons has swept away all prejudice against them, except among the interested or the blindly conservative. The military hospital in Endell Street is daily proving what women can do to repair the ravages of violence; and not far away, in the Gray’s Inn Road, there is a hospital where women repair the ravages of dirt and ignorance and apathy.
For 40 years and more the Royal Free Hospital has been fighting these foes. Today, when the value of healthy life has been forced upon the nation’s consciousness at the moment when the nation finds itself woefully short of the ministers of life and health. we are all waking up to the possibilities of the woman doctor. But the poor people of the district could long ago have told what this hospital was doing among them, and how generously ii was doing it, without asking questions, without asking for payment, without ever having asked even for that letter of admission which all other hospitals demanded.
The Royal Free Hospital was the first to open its doors to women students. It accorded practical experience and opportunity for public service to what is now the London (Royal Free) School of Medicine for Women. The school, which is for women only, can afford now to forget its long struggle against many kinds of difficulty and opposition, and be content to point to ite buildings in Hunter-street, Brunswick-square (the nucleus of them an Adam house, folded with woman’s touch of grace and fitness into the new need), where more than 400 students, each prepared to support herself during the five or six years’ training, work in laboratories, dissecting rooms, demonstration theatres, and so forth, that are equipped to perfection.
The hospital which they serve was always too small for the needs of the neighbourhood, to say nothing of the needs of the school. Just before the war a new outpatients’ department and a uniquely complete maternity department were constructed - only to be handed over to the War Office for the benefit of wounded officers. But even had the hospital the use of this hardly won addition it would still be too small for its work. After being hemmed in for years, it has now the chance of further expansion. A large site adjoining has been presented to it. The Royal Free Hospital intends to establish here an extension, portions of which will be specially devoted to the study and cure of tuberculosis and to maternity and child welfare. And it asks for £200,000 for the purpose.
Such a claim hardly needs pressing. The nation is realizing bitterly to-day what it has lost in power through mere waste of infant and adult life. It means to prevent that waste in future. The capacity of women for medicine and surgery, their special fitness for the treatment of women and children, their power to solve for us certain pressing social problems. have been by now so proved that no one will henceforth dare to dispute them. And the need of the woman doctor is not one that will end with the war.
With destruction raging around us, the thought of the Royal Free Hospital investing £200,000 in the priceless security of life, and more life, is good to contemplate. Every pound that is given will be so much alleviation of present misery, so much preparation for that better world which England has vowed to bring into being. Three generous people have already given £500 each. A few more such and the good work will be well under way.
The £200,000 for new wards, laboratories, and equipment is not all that the Royal Free Hospital asks for. It needs, desperately and immediately, a sum of £10,000 to enable it to cope with the maternity work which would, but for the war, have been going on in the new building now occupied by wounded officers. What straits it is put to, what suffering and waste are now being endured by the mothers and children of this poor and crowded neighbourhood, are only known by those who have to face them daily. Of this £10,000 little, if any, would be spent on bricks and mortar, for the plan is to make the best of one or more of the fine old houses in the neighbourhood as a makeshift. But the need is urgent.
Cheques for either fund should be made payable to “The Treasurer,” crossed Lloyds Bank (St James’s-street branch), and addressed to the Appeal Secretary, Royal Free Hospital Appeal Offices, 8 Hunter-street. WC1. And as a last word - there are things called National War Bonds. The nation wants to sell us bonds, and the Royal Free Hospital is quite ready to accept them as gifts.
The hospital which they serve was always too small for the needs of the neighbourhood, to say nothing of the needs of the school. Just before the war a new outpatients’ department and a uniquely complete maternity department were constructed - only to be handed over to the War Office for the benefit of wounded officers. But even had the hospital the use of this hardly won addition it would still be too small for its work. After being hemmed in for years, it has now the chance of further expansion. A large site adjoining has been presented to it. The Royal Free Hospital intends to establish here an extension, portions of which will be specially devoted to the study and cure of tuberculosis and to maternity and child welfare. And it asks for £200,000 for the purpose.
Such a claim hardly needs pressing. The nation is realizing bitterly to-day what it has lost in power through mere waste of infant and adult life. It means to prevent that waste in future. The capacity of women for medicine and surgery, their special fitness for the treatment of women and children, their power to solve for us certain pressing social problems. have been by now so proved that no one will henceforth dare to dispute them. And the need of the woman doctor is not one that will end with the war.
The £200,000 for new wards, laboratories, and equipment is not all that the Royal Free Hospital asks for. It needs, desperately and immediately, a sum of £10,000 to enable it to cope with the maternity work which would, but for the war, have been going on in the new building now occupied by wounded officers. What straits it is put to, what suffering and waste are now being endured by the mothers and children of this poor and crowded neighbourhood, are only known by those who have to face them daily. Of this £10,000 little, if any, would be spent on bricks and mortar, for the plan is to make the best of one or more of the fine old houses in the neighbourhood as a makeshift. But the need is urgent.
Cheques for either fund should be made payable to “The Treasurer,” crossed Lloyds Bank (St James’s-street branch), and addressed to the Appeal Secretary, Royal Free Hospital Appeal Offices, 8 Hunter-street. WC1. And as a last word - there are things called National War Bonds. The nation wants to sell us bonds, and the Royal Free Hospital is quite ready to accept them as gifts.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/women-for-the-navy-6bsl52zml?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_118&utm_medium=email&utm_content=118_February%2007,%202018&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2889024_118
Women for the Navy
Dame Katharine Furse expressed the opinion that when offering their services for the “Wrens” women ought, as far as possible, to be prepared for any other service which needed them most
Though the uniforms are not yet quite ready, and are still subject to some slight modifications owing to the difficulties of getting certain materials, women desiring to offer their services to the Women’s Royal Naval Service (the “Wrens”) can do so at once. Those with qualifications for becoming officers should apply to the Professional Women’s Register, Queen Anne’s Chambers, Broadway, Westminster, and those who wish to join the ranks can apply through the employment exchanges or the women’s recruiting huts.
Dame Katharine Furse, the director of the Women’s Royal Naval Service, said yesterday: “We want women who will come forward seriously and be prepared to be bound by the rules and regulations of our service and abide by them. A lot of the work will be at isolated stations and big naval bases, and for both we want very reliable women. We shall need both officers and women. The former will be mobile and must be prepared to go anywhere they are sent, and the latter will be both mobile and immobile. The question of accommodation has been the cause of much delay in our recruiting and it would help if women living in their own homes at the great naval bases would come forward.”
With regard to the assertion constantly made that the supply of capable women has been so thoroughly tapped that it is almost exhausted, Dame Katharine Furse said she had not found that this was so. “There are many very capable women,” she said, “in minor posts not doing work of special importance who are available. A number of patriotic women at the beginning of the war took up routine work below their capacities, which might be easily done by less well qualified women. I am hoping that I will be able to find some of my officers among them. But women who have done no work since the beginning of the war and who are only thinking of taking it up now would not be of much use as officers.”
A DEMOCRATIC BODY
“We hope to be a democratic body, and it is doubtful if we will introduce saluting of officers by the women. The use of ‘Ma’am as in the WAAC will, however, be adopted; we like it and the women like it.
“It is not likely that there will he any Wrens in London unless a few chauffeurs and the women at headquarters, and these will be as few as possible, as I do not wish to encourage a wastage of women’s work by overstaffing my own office. We will work with the minimum of officers and women. My deputy-director will be Miss Edith Crowdy and my assistant directors Mrs Cane and Mrs. Dakyns.
“The Fleet Orders are not yet ready, but as they are confidential and worded in official language they will not be used for recruiting. Instead we will have a pamphlet stating in unofficial language what the terms and conditions of service are, and also the details of uniform. The rations will not be the same as for the WAAC. They will be a naval ration, slightly larger in money and less in kind than that of the WAAC, but the total value will be the same. During their working hours the women will be under the discipline of naval officers, and when off duty they will be responsible to their own officers, as in the WAAC.”
Dame Katharine Furse expressed the opinion that when offering their services for the “Wrens” women ought, as far as possible, to be prepared for any other service which needed them most at the moment. The uniform of the director which Dame Katharine was wearing is similar to that which will be worn by all her officers, rank being shown by means of braid on the sleeve. It is a coat and skirt of navy serge, with brass naval buttons, the coat made fairly full with loose-fitting back, and a tricorne hat of black felt. The hat which will be worn by the section-leaders and the rank and file is a becoming stitched hat of navy cloth in the case of the former, and of some other fabric in the case of the latter.
A DEMOCRATIC BODY
“We hope to be a democratic body, and it is doubtful if we will introduce saluting of officers by the women. The use of ‘Ma’am as in the WAAC will, however, be adopted; we like it and the women like it.
“The Fleet Orders are not yet ready, but as they are confidential and worded in official language they will not be used for recruiting. Instead we will have a pamphlet stating in unofficial language what the terms and conditions of service are, and also the details of uniform. The rations will not be the same as for the WAAC. They will be a naval ration, slightly larger in money and less in kind than that of the WAAC, but the total value will be the same. During their working hours the women will be under the discipline of naval officers, and when off duty they will be responsible to their own officers, as in the WAAC.”
Dame Katharine Furse expressed the opinion that when offering their services for the “Wrens” women ought, as far as possible, to be prepared for any other service which needed them most at the moment. The uniform of the director which Dame Katharine was wearing is similar to that which will be worn by all her officers, rank being shown by means of braid on the sleeve. It is a coat and skirt of navy serge, with brass naval buttons, the coat made fairly full with loose-fitting back, and a tricorne hat of black felt. The hat which will be worn by the section-leaders and the rank and file is a becoming stitched hat of navy cloth in the case of the former, and of some other fabric in the case of the latter.
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