Former student Betty recently visited us on her 95th birthday. Below is some information on Betty’s life and achievements.
Betty was all set to go into teaching when she left the Sixth Form at MGGS, but she had a sudden revelation that teaching wasn’t for her, and that nursing was to be her path. So she started her training at Westminster Hospital the day after war was declared in 1939. Because of the war, the student nurses were sent to various locations outside of London – Joyce Grove at Nettlebed, (home of actress Celia Johnson and her husband the writer Peter Fleming and now a Sue Ryder home), Park Prewitt Hospital in Basingstoke – as well as working back on the wards at Westminster Hospital. Training took 3 years, and then Betty worked for 1 year as a staff nurse.
By 1944 Betty was fully qualified and decided to join the QAIMNS (Queen Alexandra’s Military Nursing Service) as an army sister. Some of the army training entailed “toughening up” exercises in various places (they were known as the lady guerrillas!) This included route marching on the hills in Peebles with their kit on their backs and steel helmets on. Sometimes tear gas bombs would be dropped and they had to put on gas masks and keep going. She worked with Sir Harold Gillies (well known then as the ‘father’ of plastic surgery).
After Dunkirk many pilots had been shot down in flames, so much had to be done – new limbs, faces, hands – plus saline baths to prevent sepsis. The young nurses had to learn how to pitch tents, as their wards would all be under canvas; there was great secrecy – they couldn’t let their families know where they were and their letters were censored. Betty was in the 79th British General Hospital; they were told that they would be the first hospital to land in France after D Day.
Betty also did a lot of work with her local “League of Friends of Reading Hospitals”, and helped to raise a great deal of money for them and Betty’s name was put forward to receive an MBE, which was really exciting. Betty’s daughter recollects “It was a bit amusing actually, because mum and the Queen are much of an age, and were dressed very similarly, with their blue frocks and white hair, and when it was mum’s turn to go up it looked just like two old friends chatting!”.