First Aid Nursing Yeomanry; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Towards the end of that week the entire staff became exceedingly short
tempered. The loss of sleep combined with hospital work probably
accounted for it; we even slept in the jolting cars on the way back. We
were more than repaid though, by the smiles of the Tommies and the
gratitude of the Y.M.C.A., who would have been unable to run the canteen
at all but for our help.
It was at this period in our career we definitely became known as the
"F.A.N.N.Y.s"--"F.A.N.Y.," spelt the passing Tommy--"FANNY," "I wonder
what that stands for?"
"First anywhere," suggested one, which was not a bad effort, we thought!
The following is an extract from an account by Mr. Beach Thomas in a
leading daily:
"Our Yeomanry nurses who, among other work, drive, clean, and manage
their own ambulance cars, are dressed in khaki. Their skirts are short,
their hats (some say their feet), are large! (this we thought hardly
kind). They have done prodigies along the Belgian front. One of their
latest activities has been to devise and work a peripatetic bath. By
ingenious contrivances, tents, and ten collapsible baths, are packed
into a motor car which circulates behind the lines. The water is heated
by the engine in a cistern in the interior of the car and offers the
luxury of a hot bath to several score men."
This was our famous motor bath called "James," and belonging to "Jimmy"
Gamwell. She saw to the heating of the water and the putting up of the
baths, with their canvas screens sloping from the roof of the ambulance
and so forming at each side a bathroom annexe. A sergeant marshalled the
soldiers in at one end and in about ten minutes' time they emerged
clean, rosy, and smiling at the other!
The article continued: "These women have run a considerable hospital and
its ambulances entirely by themselves. The work has been voluntary. By
doing their own household work, by feeding themselves at their own
expense (except for a few supplementary Belgian Army rations), by
driving and cleaning their own cars, they have made such a success on
the economical side that the money laboriously collected in England has
all been spent on the direct service of the wounded, and not on
establishment charges."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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