Part 5

The work of the V.A.D. members besides nursing, includes cooking, storekeeping, and secretarial work, which are classed under the heading of General Service. This is the branch of work for which Mrs. Charles W. Furse, as Commandant-in-Chief of the V.A.Ds. of the Joint Societies, is now responsible. The posting of the V.A.D. nurses to hospitals at home and abroad also goes through her hands. Widow of the well-known painter, and daughter of John Addington Symonds, Mrs. Furse was for several years before the war one of the most interested and prominent of V.A.D. workers. When Sir Alfred Keogh’s scheme for the organisation of voluntary Red Cross workers came into being in 1909, Mrs. Furse was one of the first women to enrol. In 1912 she became Commandant of the first Paddington Detachment, London 128. During the next two years she encouraged enterprise among the members by organising classes in cooking, laundry, and hygiene, in addition to the study of first aid and home nursing. By this time Mrs. Furse had become a member of several committees dealing with Red Cross and V.A.D. work, and was already recognised as an authority on these subjects. On the outbreak of war her services were at once commandeered by the British Red Cross Society.

For the first months of war Mrs. Furse undertook the management of the Enquiry Department at Devonshire House, which became the headquarters of the V.A.D. In September, 1914, she submitted a scheme to the War Office for V.A.D. rest stations on the lines of communication. In October she was ordered to go to France with sufficient members from her own detachment to start this work, which has been much extended, and has met a great need.

In January, 1915, Mrs. Furse was recalled from France, where the rest-station work was now established, to form a department for the co-ordination of V.A.D. work, and to organise a continual supply of probationers for the military and other hospitals. A selection board was formed at Devonshire House to deal with all applications of V.A.Ds. for service at home or abroad. Mrs. Furse’s duties also involve periodical inspections in France, where the work has been splendidly carried on by Miss Rachel Crowdy, the Principal Commandant in France. After one of her recent tours of inspection, Mrs. Furse reported: “The work of the V.A.D. members in France is a credit to the women of the Empire. Wherever I went I found the same anxiety to keep up the very high standard of work and behaviour set by the organisation.... No job is too small for the V.A.D. members, and they good-humouredly fill any gap which appears. The rules and regulations are very strict, and there is but little entertainment. The work is under war conditions, and the members try to show that they can wait till the end of the war for their play-time. Undoubtedly the V.A.D. organisation is proving that women can be trusted in the zone of the armies, and that they have realised the meaning of discipline and appreciate the necessity of discretion.”

Many girls who went to France early in the war as practically untrained workers now hold splendid records of service in hospital, and have risen to positions of considerable responsibility. In measuring the scope of what they have accomplished, it must not be forgotten that V.A.D. members are drawn from very varied social positions, a large proportion being women accustomed to lives of luxury and ease, to whom the hard and often unattractive work has been a new and difficult experience.

Mrs. Furse’s great foresight into future needs during the earlier stages of the war, the untiring energy and patience with which she prepared for the time when these needs should be recognised, and, above all, her immense personal influence, have proved her to be one of the real leaders whom the war has brought to light. It is largely through her fine personal example of the spirit in which all work should be done that the V.A.Ds. have won for themselves such a good name for keenness and discipline.

Lady Perrott, the Lady Superintendent-in-Chief of the St. John Ambulance Brigade, is another outstanding woman amongst the small number of workers who had the foresight to prepare themselves and others in peace time for what then seemed the improbable chance of war. One of the most active pioneers of V.A.D. work, Lady Perrott for five years before the outbreak of war worked under the War Office for V.A.D. development and improvement. In 1910 she was appointed Lady Commandant-in-Chief of the St. John V.A.Ds. By constantly holding meetings and inspections of detachments all through the country, she helped to standardise the training, and made herself acquainted with every detail of the work. Lady Perrott further performed a splendid service when she induced some of the principal hospitals, both in London and in the provinces, to give facilities for instruction to V.A.D. members. This experience in civil hospitals proved of immense value when war started. In 1913 Lady Perrott organised a conference on V.A.D. work, which was held at St. John’s Gate and attended by large numbers of St. John V.A.D. officers from all over the country. The effect of this conference was to arouse widespread enthusiasm for the work. Her own personal and detailed knowledge of the detachments stood Lady Perrott in good stead in the stress of the early days of war. When the call came from the War Office for V.A.D. members to serve in military hospitals, the whole organisation for selecting and posting the St. John members was in her hands, and she carried out this work with marked success. She also went to France from time to time to inspect. From the beginning Lady Perrott toiled early and late at St. John’s Gate, and by her great powers of organisation, as well as by her personal influence and untiring zeal, she was able to initiate and carry out an enormous amount of work. Apart from all she has done for the V.A.D., Lady Perrott holds a fine record of achievement. To mention only one of her other activities, it was through her instrumentality that the Board of Matrons was appointed at St. John’s Gate for the selection of fully-trained nurses, one hundred of whom were sent out to Brussels in the first three weeks of the war by the Order of St. John. Lady Perrott has also been largely associated with the St. John Ambulance Brigade Hospital, one of the finest hut hospitals in France, for which she has collected a large sum of money, besides organising a special depôt for its supply of stores and comforts.

Lady Oliver is another untiring worker to whose keenness and energy much of the success of the V.A.D. activities is due. As staff officer to Lady Perrott before the war, she was responsible for a large part of the detailed work. Since the formation of the Joint Department, Lady Oliver has worked with Mrs. Furse at Devonshire House. Lady Perrott, Lady Oliver, and Mrs. Furse have all been decorated by the King with the Royal Red Cross, and are also members of the Order of St. John, Lady Perrott and Lady Oliver being Ladies of Justice, and Mrs. Furse a Lady of Grace.

XIV

COMMANDANT DAMER DAWSON, MRS. CARDEN, AND THE WOMEN POLICE AND PATROLS

The employment of women for police service, in vogue for some years on the Continent and in the United States of America, has been developed in this country only by the outbreak of the war. Women in uniform are so frequent nowadays that the passer-by scarcely spares a glance for a hard “bowler” kind of hat, plain blue clothes, and a blue armlet with white letters on it. The wearers of this uniform seem to be peculiarly unobtrusive people, anxious to avoid, rather than to attract, attention. For all that, among the innumerable women who are taking on the new work which the times have entailed, the women police are by no means the least valuable, brave, and steadfast.

The names of three pioneers are impressed on the memory of those who have watched the development of this movement in Great Britain: Commandant Damer Dawson, Superintendent M. S. Allen, and Inspector Goldingham. It is largely through their tireless efforts that the Women Police Service, the association that they originated, has now at its command one of the finest bodies of women in the country. The influx of the Belgian refugees in August, 1914, became the starting-point of the movement. While aiding forlorn exiles lost in London byways in the small hours of the night, it was borne in upon Miss Damer Dawson how much work in the streets could be done by an organised band of trained women, armed with authority. The idea took root in her mind and grew with her work. She was soon joined by Miss M. S. Allen and Miss Goldingham, and from that period the Women Police Service may be said to have originated. These pioneers obtained the necessary training and soon set to work in the organisation of a voluntary corps. Recruits flocked in, undertook necessary training in drill, practical and theoretical instruction, and soon obtained positions as officially appointed policewomen. In this capacity they undertake such work as patrolling the streets, attendance at police courts, domiciliary visiting, the supervision of music-halls, cinemas, and public dancing-halls, and the inspection of common lodging-houses.

The need for their services grew steadily. In the summer of 1916 it was found necessary to obtain further control and supervision of the women employees in munition factories, and Sir Edward Henry, the Chief Commissioner of Police, recommended that the Ministry of Munitions should apply to the Women Police Service for a supply of trained women. This request has now created an extensive development, and a new department of the Women Police Service is at present working at high pressure under the Ministry of Munitions. Recruits are streaming in, and are receiving a special training, on completion of which they are drafted to the munition factories. There they undertake multifarious duties, including checking the entry of women into the factory; examining passports; searching for such contraband as matches, cigarettes, and alcohol; dealing with complaints of petty offences; assisting the magistrate at the police court; and patrolling the neighbourhood of the factory with a view to the protection of the women employees. In the case of misunderstandings amongst the women employees, the services of the women police have been remarkable, and there are many recorded instances where they have averted strikes in the munition factories, and thus saved the nation from ill effects on output.

In many such ways the women police have proved themselves a valuable national asset. When the war is over, Commandant Damer Dawson and her colleagues will doubtless find that the service they helped to introduce as an emergency measure has become a recognised institution of a new social order.

A further service, that of Women’s Patrols for the protection of girls in the streets, has originated with the problems connected with the war. Reports from various quarters having reached the National Union of Women Workers as to the dangers caused by the presence of numbers of young girls in the neighbourhood of military camps, it was resolved to organise a body of women of mature age and experience to aid the police in maintaining order. Here again the names of three outstanding women are associated with this work: Mrs. Carden, the hon. secretary to the movement; Mrs. Creighton, widow of the late Bishop of London; and Lady Codrington, chairman of the London Committee of Women’s Patrols. To these pioneers the work owes its initiation and development. A scheme was formulated, welcomed at once by the Home Secretary and the Chief Commissioner of Police, and by November 1914 the Women’s Patrols were in working order. Branches were quickly established throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, and there are now over 2000 women working in this connection in different parts of the country. In its initial stages the work was entirely voluntary; but since its efficiency has been established and noted by the authorities, women’s patrols have been appointed in various districts and paid at the same rate as men constables.

The main duty of the patrols is to enter into kindly relationship with girls loitering in vicinities where soldiers congregate. Their mission is not to the vicious, or to the “fallen,” but to the thoughtless girls, led astray mainly through their excitement at the unaccustomed presence of so many soldiers and by patriotic emotions of admiration and gratitude to the nation’s young defenders. The women on patrol aim at getting into touch with such girls and helping them to a healthy employment of their leisure hours. In numerous cases the Patrol Committee have organised clubs in the neighbourhood of the military quarters, these meeting-places being either for girls alone, or “mixed clubs,” where the soldiers may bring their girl friends. In the latter case, most careful vigilance and supervision from the patrols are required and given, and success is in most instances attained. This work has been warmly welcomed both by the military authorities and the police, and it is impossible to estimate the unhappiness and suffering that have been prevented by this provision of healthy recreation in a moral danger zone.

Reports both from the Metropolitan area (where over 400 patrols are now working) and from provincial towns give some measure of the success of the movement. It is significant that during the Irish disturbances of 1916 the Women’s Patrols were enabled to pursue their customary tasks, being “passed through” both by the Revolutionary party and by the soldiers.

XV

MISS LENA ASHWELL, O.B.E.

Miss Lena Ashwell’s work in starting and arranging concerts at the front has probably given more delight to a greater number of people than the efforts of any other individual woman in the war. The entire scheme was her own, and it is through her untiring efforts and her personal energy that the work has been carried on and extended in a way that is little short of marvellous.

It was in February, 1915, that Miss Ashwell was asked by the Ladies’ Auxiliary Committee of the Y.M.C.A. to send a concert party to France, and with the goodwill and co-operation of that Committee the work was launched on its successful course. The first party was an experiment in every way, but its reception left no doubt as to the feelings of the soldier audiences. The love of music is enhanced by the alternating monotony and danger of life at the front, and is as fundamental in human beings as the craving for beauty. This instinct is seen, for instance, in the soldiers’ touching desire to make gardens wherever they are quartered, and however unpromising the conditions. From Miss Ashwell’s tentative effort there has grown up a great organisation, in response to the ever-increasing request from every base, from every camp, from every hospital, and even from the firing-lines, for more and more concerts. In little more than two years over 5000 concerts have been given in France alone, apart from what has been done in Malta, in Egypt, and in the ships of the Adriatic Fleet. The audiences have been known to number as many as 5000 men, and thus hundreds of thousands are reached every month, and millions during the year.

What are called “permanent” concert parties have been established at five of the bases in France. Each party stays for about six weeks, giving on an average three concerts a day. In the afternoons they usually perform in the hospitals. In the evenings they motor sometimes twenty-five or thirty miles to outlying camps and stations, performing in tents, huts, barns, sheds, railway sidings, or even by the roadside, to all sorts and conditions of men in all branches of the Army.

The request for the concert parties to go up to the trenches and firing-lines soon followed, and this fresh branch of work was undertaken. Only men are allowed to go in the firing-line parties, and the Y.M.C.A. cars convey them on these tours. Concerts have frequently been given under shell fire--sometimes to an audience fully armed and liable to be ordered into the trenches at any moment. Some of the most successful concerts are those for men just leaving the trenches after days of fighting, and here perhaps the music has had its most wonderful effect. It seems to act like magic on the exhausted men, strained almost beyond endurance by the ordeals they have had to face. The spell of horror is broken and their minds are turned away from all they have suffered to thoughts of beauty and happiness. The existence of the firing-line concert parties is in itself a proof of how much the military authorities appreciate the concerts and their effects. They have been quick to realise that the British Army can stand anything better than being bored. The keenness with which the concerts are anticipated, the touching patience of the men, who will wait for hours in bitter wind and rain--they would rather miss their principal meal than miss a performance,--the discussion for weeks afterwards, all prove how much the music means to them.

At the outset Miss Ashwell determined that the concerts should be up to a high standard. The programmes are varied as much as possible. Classical music, selections from operas, glees, trios, and concertos, the old ballads and folk-songs, are all given, as well as popular rag-times and modern chorus songs. A “concert party” generally consists of a soprano, contralto, bass, tenor, violinist or ’cellist, pianist and accompanist, and often a ventriloquist, conjurer or reciter. “The entertainment given is a mixture of a ballad concert, a recital, and a children’s party,” writes a member of one audience.

Sometimes plays are arranged, and in the autumn of 1916 Miss Ashwell herself took out a small dramatic company and acted in _Macbeth_, _The School for Scandal_, and some short modern plays. Writing of these performances, Miss Ashwell says: “We gave _The School for Scandal_ in a wood, with half our audience on the grass, the other half dangerously overcrowding the branches of the nearest trees. _Macbeth_ was given in a great hangar, with Army blankets for the walls of the banqueting-hall, and a sugar-box for the throne. _Macbeth_ was an enormous success. Its reception was wonderful. We gave it to vast audiences; they listened breathlessly in absolute silence, and then cheered and cheered and cheered.... There were never such audiences in the world before--so keen, so appreciative, so grateful.”

Nothing can be more touching than the appreciation of the concerts in hospital. Here again the spell of the music seems to relax the strain on the men’s nerves, and the badly wounded and even dying soldiers beg to hear it, and find comfort in the midst of their suffering. The following is an extract from a letter written by a nurse: “The concert party gave a concert in the orderly room here, and afterwards those kind people came into each ward and sang softly with no accompaniment to the men who were well enough to listen, and the little Canadian story-teller told stories to each man in turn as he was having his dressings done. The result was that instead of being a suffering mass of humanity, the men were happy and amused through the whole of the time that is usually so awful.”

Concerts are also given for the medical service and the nurses, for whom these occasional evenings are the only relaxation in a life of strict discipline and unending work.

In January, 1916, in response to urgent requests, arrangements were made to extend the work to Malta, and in October, 1916, to Egypt; and, as in France, the success has been wonderful. Lord Methuen, the Governor of Malta, wrote to Miss Ashwell recently: “I cannot tell you the value that your concert parties have been to Malta. They have kept the men in hospital cheerful, and I am sure that a great deal of the excellent discipline that has been maintained here is owing to the interest the men have taken in attending your performances.”

From Egypt comes another appreciation from General Dobell, who writes: “The Lena Ashwell concert party has given concerts at all posts where it was in any way possible to allow them to go, and the fact that the ordinary rules were waived and special permission granted them to travel where no civilian in any circumstances had previously been allowed to go will make it clear to you how high a value we attach to their entertainments.” A touching account was recently given of an incident at a concert in the Sinai Desert. Some soldiers in a camp ten miles away, unable to obtain leave, were so much disappointed that they induced the Royal Engineers to lay some telephones wires, by which means these men in the distant camp were able to listen to the concert. Innumerable letters and testimonies to the success of her work have reached Miss Ashwell from all ranks and all branches of the Army--generals, commanding officers, doctors, chaplains of all denominations unite in saying that the concert parties are accomplishing work of real military value. Countless have been the letters of appreciation from the soldiers themselves. In spite of its rapid and enormous increase, Miss Ashwell has continued to organise the work in a personal and vital way. Not only has she frequently been abroad giving performances herself, but she has personally engaged all the artistes for the parties and has supervised their complicated travelling arrangements. Moreover, she has raised the entire funds to maintain the scheme by addressing meetings and by making known the work, which has thus been carried on entirely by voluntary contributions.

Miss Ashwell has her thanks in the delight of the thousands who have been cheered and helped by the efforts of the organisation which she has truly made her own. The great message that the music has brought to the soldiers is well expressed by a medical officer who wrote to her recently:

“You do help us by heartening the men up and sending them back to the firing-line happy, and with the feeling that those at home do care, are with them and are trying to help.”

XVI

MISS VIOLETTA THURSTAN

Miss Violetta Thurstan has had a career as varied and adventurous as any nurse during the war, and she has certainly used to full advantage the great opportunities which have come to her.

Trained at the London Hospital, Miss Thurstan was fully qualified to take up responsible work when war broke out, and in August, 1914, she was sent to Brussels in charge of a contingent of nurses from the St. John Ambulance Association. Arriving just before the capture of the city, she witnessed the historical entry into Brussels of the German army. Some days later, when the German authorities asked for volunteers to nurse at a little town called Marcelline, near Charleroi, Miss Thurstan offered to go, and took two nurses with her, leaving the remainder of her contingent in Brussels hospitals.