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Wilma Young Transcript of interview by Ina Bertrand 4th December 2000 - tape 1
Wilma Young interviewed by Ina Bertrand at Cardinia on 4th December 2000. Ok, thank you very much for talking to me, and can we start at the beginning and you tell us where and when you were born. Yes, I was born in Glenorchy, a very small place, near Stawell in Victoria on 17th August 1916. And eh. And your family, were they farming people? My father was on a farm called "Minneboro" just some miles away and I had an older brother and an older sister, and eh my father and mother lived out on this farm, rather isolated, and eh very primitive living conditions out there. My father and mother both became ill with that influenza after the First World War, but from what my mother said they just managed to keep on dragging themselves around. They didn’t get any medical attention - they were far too far from doctors and em eventually they must have recovered because they both lived on until they were in their 80’s, but it was a very hard life and I don’t know how they managed with 3 small children and the conditions that they were living under. Eventually they moved to another farm outside Rupanyup and eh they lived there for some time. My brother started school while they were there - at the Rupanyup State School and then we moved to live in the town of Rupanyup and my father went to the farm each day to work. We were in a much better house, and mush better living conditions, but of course, like all farms or small towns, the bathroom was not very modern. Was it inside the house? Well actually it was, in that house, but of course the toilets were always well away from the house and em … but we were living in much better conditions than we had been on the farm and em I started school. My sister and my brother went to the school and I started school there when I was about 4½. My younger brother had been born there and I remember that very well. I was only about 2½, but eh we had a nurse living in and the baby was delivered in the home and to see this big, stately lady dressed as a nurse rather impressed me when I was 2½ and em that impressed itself on my mind. So that may have been the beginning of your career do you think? Well, I don’t know, I was overawed at the thought of it and the local infant mistress boarded with us and I went off to school at 4½.and of course she was teaching me at school, and em so we were there for some time and then we moved onto a farm half way between Rupanyup and Murtoa, and eh on a wheat farm, and we built a new house which was quite luxurious after what we had been living in and yes, it was very good, lovely. But the trouble was we had to drive to school with a horse and gig about 5½ miles I think it was, but in the winter the road was so bad and so muddy that our gig was nearly up to the axles, through the mud. It was … it was, it really was very difficult, and it was so cold we would have to leave home about 7 in the morning and my mother used to heat up bricks, hot bricks and put them in the bottom of the gig to try and keep our feet warm, but em it was quite a harrowing business getting to and from school every day. My brother and sister were eventually going to the Higher Elementary School in Murtoa and I was … my younger brother and I were going to the State School and from where we left the horse and gig we had quite a long walk to school, and em then after school we had to buy the bread and go to the station and get the daily paper to take home with us. Now we sat on that station, sometimes for an hour, because the trains were often late, but we always had to wait and get the paper because that was the lifeline of the family to the news of the day. Who drove the gig? My brother, my elder brother. And eh How old would he be then? Well, he’d be eh 14, 15, 16. We did that for about 4 years and then eh he went off to school in Melbourne, to go to higher education, which you couldn’t get in the country, and then it was difficult for us to get to school because my father, I think he was a male chauvinist actually, he never thought that girls could do what boys could do and he thought that my elder sister wasn’t capable of driving us to school. Anyway, we moved from the farm to live in the town of Murtoa and em so that we were able to either walk or ride bikes to school to the Higher Elementary which was in Murtoa. It is still there. That is where I was educated. I got to the fourth form - intermediate - and that was the end of the school that they could take you. To go on eh … you either had to go away or my sister and brother had both gone to Melbourne for higher education, but the Depression caught up with things very badly and em the people that had bought our farm were em … didn’t keep up their payments and things were very tough. So I did the next year with correspondence at the school. By that time I was about 16 or 17 I suppose and eh .. That is still quite forward thinking for your father to allow you to continue at school. Oh yes By correspondence, and to allow your sister to go down to Melbourne. Yes, yes. My sister did a typing and shorthand … she went to MLC. My brother went to Scotch and he eventually went on to university and became a civil engineer. He lives in Brighton, a retirement village, because he is getting on now, towards 90, but he is still quite capable … you know, he is still very good. But eh the Depression came and nobody knows what we went through in the Depression. People had no jobs, there was hardly enough to eat, people used to come to the back door and ask for food and they’d be selling wire coathangers and things like that. And they would come and offer to chop some firewood for you and anything they would do, just to get a meal. And of course we didn’t have much ourselves. So what was your father doing at that stage? Eh, well, when he sold the farm and moved into the town, he didn’t do anything for a while, except play bowls. Then he bought a garage in Rupanyup. He knew nothing about garages an em I think he didn’t do too well out of that, he didn’t know how to run a garage and when he bought another farm some --oh he bought Minneboro - the original farm, he bought that again and so he worked that from Murtoa, he used to go down, he had sheep on that and em … oh there goes the phone … we ran sheep on the farm, Minneboro. Well then I decided to go nursing. Things were very bad, my sister didn’t have a job and eh the local minister’s wife had been a nurse on the staff at the Warrnambool Hospital and eh so she thought it would be a good idea if my sister went nursing. She could … it was a long waiting list to get into nursing in those days but my sister would probably be able to get in. Well she came to the house one day, very delighted, and told my mother that there was a space for my sister to start nursing. My sister in the meantime had got a job with the local council and em my … Had come back to Murtoa? She was back at Murtoa and she was working in Rupanyup, yes. Right. And em eh my father and mother weren't altogether taken up with nursing. They weren't exactly sure that it was a very good profession. So my mother said to em Mrs Bull, "Well look, there is no need for her to go nursing, because she has got a job now". Well, this lady really looked so utterly devastated, I was sitting there and I thought oh, that’s terrible and I quite spontaneously said, "Well look, I’ll go", because I had nothing in view. I wasn’t really trained for anything eh, so she was delighted. The only thing was I was only 17 and I had to wait till I was 18. So that was all right, I waited till I was 18 and then I went to Warrnambool. Did you have to have a minimum qualification, school qualification? Merit - that was year 8 now. Oh, right, but you had done more than that, you had done intermediate. I had intermediate And did you complete the leaving certificate? The leaving certificate, I had gained English and economics. Right. By correspondence? By correspondence, yes. So my educational qualifications were adequate, more than adequate for what we were expected. So, I went nursing down to Warrnambool. I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t know anything about nursing, nothing. And em my father and mother drove me down there. What I … went to the nurses’ home after seeing the matron and eh was told I had to be on duty at 6.30 next morning, so that is right. They came … the night nurse came round and woke us all up about ten to six and we had to be fully dressed and go down and report on duty at six. Was there a batch of young people starting, or were you the only new … ? I was the only newcomer, but there were, it was only, it wasn’t a very big hospital. I have forgotten how many trainees they had, probably about 30 altogether, and yes, I was the only one starting that day and I went on down, down … reported on duty … didn’t know anybody and the girl who was junior of the ward took me around with her to show me what had to be done and em she said to me, "Now you have got to do all this tomorrow on your own," because she was going to move up one step. So she wrote it all this out, I had this in my pocket, this list of things, I had no idea how I was going to get through everything and to remember what I had to do. Well fortunately the patients were wonderful. They all knew what I had to do and they were most helpful, so eh, but really you had to run, you had so much to do. And how long was a day? Well we went on duty at twenty past six and you probably worked through till six at night. Or, if you didn’t do that, you worked till 2 o’clock, and then you were back on again at five and worked until nine. Eh, and you had your lectures from probably at 7 o’clock, at night, or if you were on duty from five till nine, you still had to go to your lecture, but you still had to get all your work done. So, it wasn’t an easy life. The ward where I was working had no fresh water laid on to the ward. We had to cart it in buckets, eh and eh, well, we just had to do everything. We had no wards’ maids. One girl worked in the pantry, did a bit of work in the pantry, but we had to do all the patients’ meals, and … . Cooking too? Well, there was, the meals came up from the kitchen, but we had to cook the invalid meals ourselves. In the pantry we cooked these invalid meals and then the junior nurse had to get morning tea ready for the staff on duty and afternoon tea ready for them as well. We had to sweep the floors and polish them, we had heavy pieces of wood which we used to wrap old blanket around and there was a long handle, we used to push that around to polish the floors and em, yes, that was quite hard work. So it was both patient care and ward cleaning? We just did everything. Everything. Yes, we didn’t do the washing, we had a laundry, but we washed all the dressing towels, towels, linen we used for doing dressings we washed ourselves and hung those out. Yes, and the boiler, there were 2 boilers that had to be stoked. Well there was a boiler man, but he only worked from eight in the morning till five in the afternoon, so we stoked the boilers from five in the afternoon till eight the next morning and if we didn’t stoke them and keep them going, there would be no hot water for the hospital, or for the staff to have a bath or anything. So, em, that was quite hard work. And then of course the operating theatre was attached to the ward I was working in - we didn’t have a full time operating staff - the sister in charge of the ward I was in, the male ward, she was also the theatre sister and eh the junior nurse had to go to the theatre and be the theatre scout. There’s a theatre scout. And I remember the bell rang for the theatre scout to go. And em, but I didn’t want to go, I hadn’t been to the theatre, I didn’t know anything about the theatre, and em so I just didn’t answer it, but anyhow, I had to answer it, there was no question about that, so that was my first experience of working in the operating theatre. When you said you had to, was there a disciplinary procedure if you had not done something, what would happen? Well, I would have been sent to matron I suppose. There would have been disciplinary action taken. You never found out? No, I answered the bell and I answered it from then on without any trouble, but yes, you had to do that and it was em … and then we did night duty from eh … we went on at nine did we, we went on at nine and came off at seven in the morning. Well we did that for 3 months without a night off and then at the end of the time you got 12 days off to make up for what you hadn’t had. And we had a infectious diseases part, away, attached away from the hospital and if we had any infectious diseases, we were sent over there to work. Well now, I went over there, I had 2 diptheria cases and 2 scarlet fever cases. Well, of course, they had to be separated and eh I was the only nurse - you had to do day and night, do the lot. Look after them on your own eh … Were you in quarantine then while you were doing that? Yes, yes, you were in quarantine, I was over there, I was looking, I was over in isolation over Christmas and New Year for 6 weeks or longer without a day off. You didn’t get any time off at all and you did day and night. Day and nigh 24 hours a day? On your own? Yes, you were on your own over there. Your meals were brought over, they were brought over and just dumped at the gate of this place and the bullock bell was rung, so you went out and collected them and then you left your things there again and they were taken away. You didn’t have any contact with anybody. But during this time, the exams were on for our medical paper was written and the matron said I had to do the exam and one nurse came over to supervise that I did the exam and didn’t look up books and things, so I did that. I was, you know I was without much rest at all. Well now the doctor who set the exam found out the conditions that I had had to do it under and he refused to mark all the papers, so everybody had to sit for it again. Yes, but em after I had been over there I went … I had about a fortnight off, but before I went over to the infectious part I had been home with diptheria myself. I had been home sick in bed with diptheria and I came back and em … anyway I was put over into the isolation part and looked after these patients, yeah, it was hard work, but never mind, we enjoyed it, we had a lot of … Sounds like a very thorough training, even if it was hard on you. Oh it was, we were considered very well trained nurses. Yes, we, we worked hard, but em. What about your living quarters? Yes, we had a room to ourselves and our living quarters were well … they were adequate. The trouble is we only had one bathroom and when we came off duty at 6 o’clock and you all wanted to go out, of course you had to hurry to get out, you had to be back in bed by 10 o’clock with the light out and em … so we all used to … 2 or 3 of us would get in the bath together and have a bath because you didn’t have much time. So eh … I have still got friends, a lot of them are dead now, but the friends that I had trained with, we are still close and em yes … well I went from there, after I had finished my training, I went down to Melbourne and started in the Jessie McPherson Theatre, hospital theatre. Did you apply for that job? Well the matron at Warrnambool said to me, "The Jessie McPherson want a relieving theatre nurse for a couple of weeks. You go down and apply for that". I didn’t know my way around Melbourne, so she drew me a little plan, how to get to the Queen Vic and I went to see the matron and she said yes I could have the job. I had to go home and get uniforms made, they had special material you had to have your uniforms made from, and she said I could come back in a fortnight and take this job. Well, I was only home for about a week and the telephone rang and I had to go straight back. Did you pay for your own uniforms? Yes, you did. You paid for you own uniforms when you went nursing originally and then you paid, yes you paid for your … yes you did all that. You didn’t get much pay either, but eh, yes I went back to Jessie McPherson and I was there then for about 2 years. Just in the operating ..? Just in the operating theatre, yes. There were 3 of us on the staff there and we did all the operations, day or night. If we had to get up in the night we got up, but we worked all day then as well. There wasn’t a relieving theatre staff, so, yes we did all the operations there. That was a women’s hospital wasn’t it? So it was mainly gynacaelogical work you were doing? Well, most of it was, yes. It was a women’s hospital, but we did have male doctors that operated in the theatre. That was very interesting and I learned a lot there. Well then the war broke out in 㤯 and everybody was going off to the war, but I just didn’t want to go. I made up my mind I wasn’t going to the war, so instead of enlisting for the war I went to the Womens to do my midwifery course and that is what I did. I was there working at the Womens. Did you complete that? Yes, I completed that eh and, em while I was on night duty at the Womens, France fell and I got up and you … you don’t feel very wonderful at 4 o’clock in the afternoon when you are on night duty, and when I heard that France had fallen I thought, it just struck me that it was dreadful and I thought, well I think I had better apply to join the army and eh, that’s what I did, I put an application in. Why the army? I don’t really know. I eventually put an application in for the Air Force too. So I had my applications, one for the army, one for the Air Force with the medical exams and so forth and I was standing at a post box outside the Womens wondering which one I would post and Mona Wilton, eh with whom I had trained and we were great friends, she came along and said em, "Post the army", she said, "I have just joined the army, post the one for the army". So I did, and tore up the Air Force one, so that was the die was cast, I was in the army. Eventually I was called up by Miss Field and I went to em … When was that? The dates you know, it’s hard to remember. Some time, it must have been late 㤰 or 㤱 I think and em I was sent to Heidelberg to work. Now Heidelberg was … To the Repat Hospital. Yes, a repat, Heidelberg and it was just being built, so it was all very primitive. There were only about 12 or more nurses on the staff at that stage and hardly any wards open and em a lot of mud and yeah, it was just in the process of getting started. What sort of cases were coming there? People who had come back from the war? No, at first they were just cases … medical cases mostly from the army people in Australia Right But then the first casualties came back from the Middle East and they had very bad leg wounds and arm wounds and eh one man had em got - I don’t know whether he had meningitis - but he had, he had to learn to talk again and em but the men, there was one man with both his legs in plaster eh … I remember them … I even remember their names and there was another man with his arm badly shattered eh … and they were in hospital for a long time. Is it the length of their stay that makes you remember them or was there something different about this experience that made you remember it more vividly? Well, I suppose, to see these young, fit men with such horrific injuries, probably impressed on me the horror of war and somehow or other, I remember them. Eh, I think some of them were in hospital … they were there for some years. Right, so you would remember, you would have constant contact. But then I was only nursing them actually for a few months because I was sent overseas myself. I went overseas in September 1941. While you were at Heidelberg was there any particular army training or was it simply assumed that your nursing duties would be identical wherever you were? Eh, it was assumed that as we were trained nurses, we wouldn’t get any more training. That that was what we had. The only extra training I had was em Sister Kinsella and myself went and I .. and yes we went over to the Alfred Hospital for training in brain surgery, but that is the only extra training we had. It was assumed that our nursing training was all we needed. Who was in charge at Heidelberg of the nursing staff when you were there? Matron McAllister. Right, tell us about her. Oh, well, she had been First World War, I think. She was very stern and disciplinarian really, but she was very fair. Were all matrons like that? I think most of them were. So this wasn’t particularly an army style then, it was just a nursing style. Yes, I think it was nursing style, perhaps with a bit of army thrown in. She did announce to us when we went there that if we brought any alcohol onto the premises that would be it, you know, we would be kicked out. And do you know, when I came back, they had a wet mess. Life moves on. Doesn’t it, um. So were the conditions at Heidelberg similar to what you had had at Warrnambool and at Jessie Mac - your living conditions and your working conditions? Oh, our living conditions were quite good, the nurses home was quite comfortable. The working conditions, well things were just being built and just being done and, you know, it wasn’t easy. I worked in the convalescent mess for a bit and we had all the convalescent patients came and we fed them and all these dishes had to be washed. Well, we had a dishwasher we put them in. Well, I have never seen anything like the mess they came out in. It … we had to turn around and wash them by hand and we just couldn’t get that dishwasher to work.. But … It seems strange to hear nowadays that nurses had to wash dishes doesn’t it? Well yes, I suppose, yes. We had to dish out all the food and give them to these men. We supervised what people ate. We knew if our patients weren't eating, we knew what they ate and if they couldn’t feed themselves, we fed them. We were always aware of how much they ate and how much they drank, which is very much part of recovery. But, however, life moves on and em … I interrupted you then to ask that … pick it up again when you were sent overseas. Yes. How much notice did you have of that? Not much. Were you given a leave before it like the … like other army personnel were doing? Yes, Matron Field told me that I was in the C transport unit and I had to wear colour patches and so forth and I could go home on final leave for 2 or 3 days or a week, nothing much. So home I went on a final leave and the local people of Murtoa were going in … had a bit of a social night, like they do in these small places and my sister’s boyfriend, who eventually became her husband, I had never made a speech in my life and he got up and said, "Unaccustomed to public speaking … " and anyway, eh, they were making fun of me about this. However, I went along and I made my little speech of thanks and then I had to catch the train back to Melbourne the next day. Well I went to the station, my mother didn’t come to the station with me, there was a horse drawn cab I got and em I said goodbye to my family and went to the station. But then, when I got there the father of one of my friends, with whom I had gone to school, was there to see me off, which was absolutely marvellous of him and he saw me off and he saw me off and you know, I never really cried, but I got on that train and I was in uniform but I cried for ages. I don’t know why, but I did. I suppose it was just knowing I was leaving home, I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. How did you feel about the war itself? Did you … Were you a very patriotic sort of person? Well, I just knew that we had to somehow make sure Australia wasn’t invaded. I thought we didn’t want anything to happen to our own country. It wasn’t so much that I was worried about the other people, but I was worried about Australia. So how did you follow the war news? Mainly newspapers, radio, what … how did you know what was going on all the time? Oh it was probably radio and newspapers, that’s the only way we knew anything about it. Did you talk a lot about the war with people you worked with and friends? No, I don’t think we did eh … we just knew it was … terrible things were happening, but I don’t think we spent a lot of time talking about it, no. Did you have time for much social life during the war before you left Australia or were you so involved with nursing there really wasn’t much time for anything else? I don’t remember having any social life. No, we worked pretty long hours, I don’t remember the hours now, but em … Do you remember going to pictures or dances or anything like that? No, never went to anything like that, no. Eventually they had a picture theatre at Heidelberg, but they didn’t have it when I was there. No, I don’t think we had any social life at all. I don’t think we were … . Heidelberg is a very remote place. It was very hard to get to and fro - still is. And once you were there, you stayed there and we only had public transport to use. Were you a keen reader? Yes, I have always been a keen reader. Where did you get books? Well … Was there a library around? No, there wasn’t a library, no, what did we do? I think we worked pretty hard and em … then had a bit of social life amongst ourselves and then went to bed. Right, ok. But as for having a social life, I don’t remember having any? Yes. All right, so then you sailed off on the Wanganella? I came back from final leave and Matron Field sent for me again and asked me would I like to change my unit and em … she said I would get away sooner if I did and of course the ambition was to get away and I was prepared to change my unit, so I spent the whole weekend changing from the unit I was in to the 13th Australian General Hospital, which meant I had to change my colour patches and change everything and I had to be equipped quickly for going overseas and em … so in no time at all, we were called up and taken to the Lady Duggan Hostel in em … I think it’s in Armadale. And we met up with all the interstate girls - the girls from Queensland and New South Wales. We were all there waiting to embark for overseas. We had had our injections and all the preliminary things you have to do and eh … we spent I think probably 2 or 3 days there - we would ring our families up and em say we were still here, but we wouldn’t be here for long, we weren't allowed to tell them anything. Then word came we were on buses and down to get onto the Wanganella and eh it was late in the evening, about 5 o’clock I think, and we were … we embarked, and then somebody came and said I was wanted and I went down, there was my father on the wharf to send me off. Oh, that’s nice too. I’d, yeah, well, I was quite brave until then. And of course I had to break up again, which was very awkward, but, yes, I don’t know how he got to know, but he came to see me off on the Wanganella. Well, we set sail and it was - I had never been on a ship before, it was lovely, I was feeling absolutely marvellous and all of a sudden sea sickness hit. My goodness, oh, what an experience. And from then on, I was no good until we got to Perth. Was there anybody else on the Wanganella or was it all nurses? Oh no, It was a troop ship? There would … the rest of the eh … all our orderlies for the hospital and em It was a hospital ship and you know, I think there were troops on board because we were supposed to do duty every so often; it was very hard to do duty when you were seasick. You mean you were supposed to be nursing in the hospital? We were supposed to be looking after anybody on the ship that was … Right, who looked after you while you were seasick? Nobody, you had to look after yourself. You weren't supposed to be seasick. Were many of the nurses seasick? I think quite a few. One girl was so badly affected that when we got to Perth she was taken off and brought home. She was very badly … she never got overseas, but the rest of us were all right - I don’t think they were all seasick, but quite a few of us were. Had you overcome it by the time you got to Perth? Yes, once we got to Perth the sea was nice and calm, it was lovely. It was just heaven and from Perth to Singapore was nice and flat. Lovely, no more seasickness, no it was dreadful. I think the Bight was extra rough actually, they say it was, but I think everybody says that, don’t they, when they go on a rough trip. But yes, seasickness was oh, was appalling and em the thought of orange juice, just, you know, people trying to make you drink. You have kept a lifelong prejudice against it have you? Yes, it always makes me think of seasickness, unfortunately. Oh dear oh dear. Um. Ok, so when did you arrive in Singapore? September 1941. Right. And eh. And what was it like then, what was Singapore like? Oh, well it was hot and em just a completely new experience. But we settled in to that. Eh half the girls of the unit had to go to Malacca to relieve the 10th AGH and the rest of us went to St Patrick’s School in Katong where we were billeted and eh we were given a Chinese amah to look after us, do our washing and look after us. This was heaven wasn’t it? Um. After what we had been through and em eh I think she had 4 or 5 of us to look after. There wasn’t that much to do for us. But em … oh we had … that was wonderful, we had nothing much to do, except get ourselves acclimatised and em get used to the heat. You mean you weren't working? No, we weren't working, we were in the Katong School and we gave lectures to the orderlies for about an hour, 2 hours in the morning, then we had a siesta, eh … we didn’t … the meals were em … we had a mess and I suppose the only orderlies to get our meals. The meals weren't very wonderful. Well then we went into Singapore socialising and em went to Raffles and Seaview Hotel and other places. Was the place full of troops? Full of troops, yes. So you would have been feted then? Oh yes, we had a wonderful time. Pretty young girls in amongst all those men? Oh yes, yes, we had a wonderful time there for a week or two in Singapore, but then we had to move up to Jahore Bahru, 8 of us had to go to Jahore Bahru, to join the casualty clearing station nurses, to help them. They were working in a em … a mental hospital, tried to be converted into a hospital, it wasn’t very satisfactory, but they were working there and 8 of us went to help them and we worked with them for some weeks. Where were these casualties coming from? Eh, up north of Malaya, we had a lot of malaria and dengue and all … various surgical things, not much you know, appendix and a few surgical things, but not a lot. No battle casualties and em … there might be car accidents and things like that. Well the CCS were moved up to, I think they went to Kluang, I am not sure, then the rest of our staff, the rest of the 13th AGH all moved up to Jahore and we got this mental hospital going as a general hospital. Eh, it was very unsatisfactory, but we had to do the best we could. You mean the facilities were inadequate? The whole, yes, it was all inadequate. The … we had to em … the operating theatre was a room. We had to sterilise our instruments over Primus stoves and our autoclave was gas fired and eh blew up and killed one of our orderlies and em … Altogether the instrument room, you had to go outside the theatre and walk right around a long way to get to where the instrument room was, so you had to have all your instruments, before you started your operation, you had to have them all handy. The theatre linen, well I em I did … well, we’ll say borrowed anyway, a sewing machine and we had to make a lot of our own theatre linen. And eh … because. Who were you serving then? The army personnel in Singapore or a more general community? All army personnel in Malaya, Singapore and Malaya, it was all army. Ok. And em we had one man eh … he had been walking along between tents and somebody had … their lantern … kerosene lantern flared up and he threw it out of his tent and hit this man as he walked past and he was just so horribly burnt and he came in, but you know, he died, we couldn’t do anything really much to help him. That was one of the worst cases that we had, no, that was dreadful, such a simple accident, but em … Yeah, we had em 3 nurses in the theatre, Sister Simons, who lives in Tasmania, Sister Kerr, oh we were lieutenants then, and who was shot on the beach in Banka and myself. We were the 3 theatre sisters and we had several orderlies that helped in the theatre. We did all the theatre work that had to be done. How many doctors? Em … eh … there were … there would probably be 4 doctors. All men? Yes, oh yes, all men. There were no women doctors sent to the war. I don’t know whether they send women doctors now, but they didn’t then. Em … I can't remem … yes, there were about 4 at that stage I think. Something like that, I can remember all their names, most of them. But I won't name them. Your living quarters, were they much the same as they had been in Australia or I would think they would be very different. Oh they were different. Yes, we shared rooms, there were two of us in each room. I was with Mona Wilton, this girl that I trained with, we ended up in the same unit so that we were able to always share everything then. Share rooms and go on leave together. We could never go on leave on our own, there always had to be 2 of us to go on leave, 2 or more and eh … no the living quarters were … they were quite adequate. We had beds to sleep on and all … the kind of beds you have over there and you didn’t need much bedding because it was pretty hot. Yes, our living quarters were all right. What about your leave? How often did you get leave? I think we got leave once a week and we went to Singapore and em stayed at Raffles. How far away was it? Oh from Jahore to Singapore, em … oh, I am not sure how far it is, it is not terribly far. Did you travel by truck? Oh, we would go probably in a taxi … would we ? … or an army car … or we got there somehow. So it sounds like a much more relaxed kind of lifestyle than you were used to from Melbourne. Oh yes, yes, much more social life, yes, much more, yeah. We were there over Christmas in Jahore. Of course things were getting "hotted up" by then because the Japs were in the war by then, but em … What was Christmas like? Well, we had a bit of a Christmas party you now, but eh … by that time we were very busy and eh … blackouts and things like that, you know, you had to be very careful, you couldn’t … we weren't having much leave by then. How did you hear about the war there? Were there army postings or local newspapers, how did you know what was going on? Or did you know, did you know how close the Japanese were and what they were doing in the Pacific? Oh yes we knew, we knew all about it. Eh … we knew as soon as the Prince of Wales and the Repulse was sunk.. How did this news get to you? By word of mouth I think, just went … everybody … I suppose people coming in to the hospital, well casualties coming back from the fighting we would know, from them, what was happening. We always knew, not that I ever had time to read a newspaper or to listen to a radio, but I think people just told us. Ok, what about news from Australia? Did you get regular mail? At that stage we were getting mail and we were sending letters at that stage, so that we had some idea of what was going on at home. Did you ever have to vote overseas while you were away? No, I don’t remember that there was voting eh … because by the time there was voting, we were prisoners of war. No, I didn’t vote while I was overseas. Right, I think we are probably up to the point of asking you about the … … evacuating Evacuating, yes. Yeah. Well, we were very busy in the hospital, we were really terribly busy in Jahore and em … By this stage were there battle casualties coming in? Yes, battle casualties coming in and we were pretty busy. Anyhow, word was sent down that we were eh to evacuate … this came late in the evening, late at night, that we were to evacuate, and eh so I got busy packing up the theatre and the theatre sister wasn’t on duty at the time and she came on and asked me where my orders, my written orders in triplicate. Of course I didn’t have any … and eh, she hadn’t been in the army terribly long, and, you know, she still thought you had to have everything done by the rules, but I hadn’t worried about that because, you know, evacuating, you have got to be quick, so anyhow, we got the theatre packed up and eh … we were taken down to Singapore in an ambulance. Sister Simons was sitting with the theatre instruments on her lap, being very, you know, careful of them, make sure we got them down there all right and then of course we went back to the Katong School of St Patricks, which we had to turn into a hospital. Well we just had a room, just an ordinary room, that we had to set up as an operating theatre and there was no running water. Eh Dr Crankshaw, our anaesthetist, he got busy and got some running water for us going. It is very hard to work without all these things and eh I think there were 6 tables and em … we had them all going at once, it was so busy. We got … Why did you move? Well, because the Japs were so close. So this is pulling back into Singapore you’re talking about? Yes, yes. At that stage was there any talk that Singapore was likely to fall? Well, we all knew there wasn’t much hope. How did you know that? There was … they had no defence, they had these guns that pointed out to sea. Well they eventually turned those round and they were firing over the top of the hospital, but … it was futile. So you were working knowing that it was like … that something was about to happen? Well, we knew there wasn’t much hope.
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Victorians at War - Oral History Project