Shiran

Bernadette Williams

Driving the Battle

I have been asked for some of my recollections of the War years. Taking my memory back to the dim and distant past To give you some idea of my life up to this time I first came to Canada with my mother and father and two younger sisters in 1932. My father had come out of the Army after 24 years service and had obtained a job at the Portland Cement works in Gads Hill as Timekeeper and Storekeeper.

When I was 11 years old I was selling poppies door to door for my school and a young man bought some crosses from me and later that day he came down to our house to buy some more. Little did I know that day that 7 years later I would marry him.

War broke out and in early 1940 the blitz started and as I had to do some sort of war work and I could drive I joined the ARP as an ambulance driver. I had to take a special driving test before I could drive an ambulance

Because of the heavy bombing we were considered a high risk area and if a major raid happened ambulances had to vacate the towns and drive to an assembly point where we would be sent to another depot.

Each shift was composed of a first aid party of four men who treated victims as they were extracted from the rubble. Then there was an ambulance with a driver and an attendant and a sitting case car that took the minor injuries back to a first aid post at Richmond Road Infants School which was staffed by nurses.

As a driver I had to check the tires, radiator and battery each morning. One of the more unpleasant tasks was the cleaning out of the interior after we had carried casualties.
A lot of the early casualties were from shrapnel wounds rather than the actual bombs.

My first casualty was a four year old boy who had a fractured base of skull and I duly took him to casualty at the back of the Hospital, my attendant asked a nurse and doctor talking at the door to help us with the stretcher but they said to wait for porters - we went back down to the High Street and got two men passing by two carry the stretcher. The child was dead before he reached the operating theatre. A very sad experience. I will never forget the eyes of that boy.