Category: 1945

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1945 Meg poem

Two Years in Khaki

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Two Years in Khaki (1945)

I little knew, two years ago, when dressed
Newly in khaki, what these years would add
To my small store of knowledge. Looking back
I still know little but I’ve learnt a lot
Of things both good and bad and for them all
Am grateful. I can cram my life’s
Essentials, in a moment, in two packs
And travel night and day asking not where
(nor caring either.) I can live within
A crowded mess yet call my soul my own.
I’ve met more people, seen more places than
Ever I did in peace-time. I’m prepared
To try my hand at any job I’m given
Without expostulating first, and I
Who hated changes, can accept them now
With fatalistic calm. I yearn no more
For steaming baths, dry clothes, or ham and eggs.
If I can get enough to eat and drink,
Can sleep by night and can keep warm by day,
And get my letters quickly, I’m content –
Well, more or less content, a bowler hat
Is all I ask for more: I’ve learnt enough
In these two years to know it suits me well.

Margaret Taylor 1945

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1945 diary Meg

Meg’s Diary 1945

by Margaret Taylor, age 30 years
April 3rd 1945

Continuing the journey across France with No. 6 Military Hospital.

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Mum’s Wartime Diary – 1945

Tuesday, April 3rd 1945

Looking back through this small book makes me feel a hardened war veteran already – Bayeux, Rouen, and Ghent – France and Belgium already, and maybe Germany and Burma to come!

We arrived at Oostakter, Ghent, on Dec 2nd after a fairly comfortable though rather tedious train journey. Peggy and I were delegated to the Sisters’ care again while travelling and spent the first few days after our arrival in their mess at the Convent.

We revolted against it almost every moment, though of course we recognised its necessity. The endless and pointless tittle-tattle and petty gossip which is the sole source of conversation got our backs up and irritated us beyond endurance. Yet I can well imagine that we should be doing just the same thing if we had lived amongst them for many months on end. Anyway, we got shifted across to the unsavoury little pub serving as the Officers’ Mess after a few days and settled into our cosy little bedroom on the top floor, with good old cheerful Jock McClean to “mother” us, and we have been installed there (and very comfortably housed all things considered) ever since – 4 months already!

From the moment of our arrival we liked the face of Ghent, and we haven’t changed our minds. The town is old and has some beautiful buildings; the shops are numerous and well-stocked and the people friendly and full of good spirits, not like the depression of people and place in Rouen.

The hospital at first depressed us, for it was so obviously unsuited for a hospital – at least the old block was, and that was where the medical division wards were to be. Alterations, adaptions and innovations got done slowly and are still going on, but the first lot of patients arrived within a fortnight or so of our arrival. I started off with D Ward , one of the old and unheated rooms, with no duty bunk and no kitchen worth the name, and sister McKeoun, whom I had at Rouen and would have like to have been spared! Very soon I was given Ward J at the top of the old block, but a much better ward and Sister Peche, who was an old friend of Bayeux days. But I never got the chance of settling even there, but got shifted again to F Ward, still general medical, and then got Ward E, the infections ward, and one of the best on the medical side. I thoroughly enjoyed myself there and it was too good to last, for one fateful afternoon a month ago Col. Jones said he was the bearer of bad news – I was to be loaned to the Surgical Division which was very short of M.O.s.

So for the past few weeks I have been coping as best I could with Ward 6, the big P.O.W. Ward with 120 beds, which are never empty for long and never filled by the same patients for more than a few days at a time. It has been hectic at times, but not all the time and the main hectic-ness has been in writing up documents and rushing rapidly round new cases when convoys have arrived.It hasn’t involved much clinical work and I have been more than a little depressed at times,longing to get back into the medical wards to be a doctor and not a clerk. Still, as Peggy said, “it has got to be done and someone must do it”, so on the whole I have tackled it with resignation and as much goodwill as I could muster.

Now I am for the moment leading a bone-lazy existance, doing temporary duty on an ambulance train outside Ghent, at Medbreak. I arrived here yesterday morning and goodness knows when or if the train will go on its next trip. Meanwhile there is nothing to do but relax, and that I am finding rather boring than restful. This morning I went with “Percy” – Miss Percival – into Ghent and made some useful purchases of handkerchiefs and stockings at the officers shop and tomorrow if possible I shall try to get back to No. 6 for the clinical meeting there, and to collect my letters – I want especially to get Mum’s letter because she will have just heard about my coming leave on April 23rd and I’m hoping to read what she had to say about it!

Besides work, the last few months have of course been eventful in other ways. Many M.O.s have come and gone, and they are still coming and going frequently. Pop Sanderson went to a Field Hygiene Section. Major Isaac, Lewis, Lucas< Bobby Morton and others have gone forward to Burma and Pop Elliott to a ?? Depot. Peggy and I got a terrific shock about 3 or 4 weeks ago for we received warning that we were to go to the Far East in March – we had a medical exam and spent a week in a weird daze, unable either to believe or disbelieve in the prospect of such an imminent and drastic change. However, after about a week we heard that the ;postings had been cancelled and we came to life again and resumed normal activities with renewed energy. Luckily we had decided not to tell our families until things had been really settled, so they still don’t know how near they were to saying goodbye to us for several more years – it may happen yet, and we had to complete a form about length of foreign service the other day, so perhaps the great adventure was only postponed for a month or two after all.

Although I am officially on the surgical side my loyalties all belong to the physicians, and whatever happens I down tools on Saturday morning and go along for the clinical round from 11 to 12; and enjoy every moment of it – I think it keeps me alive from one weekend to the next! I still read my Lancets and BMJs in the M.O.s room in the evenings so I still see the Office Boys and Col. Jones nearly every day and keep up our bantering in the old style, and all enjoy it. Col. Jones was given the OBE the other week and was simply delighted, and never ever tried to conceal the fact! He is much easier to talk to now and I’m not so frightened of him as I used to be, though my respect for him is even greater than ever, I think. Drury is still “with us”, and a medical specialist “trainee” (so are Grainger and Robertson, the new man, and Pop Elliott before he left.) Dru has done about 2 months now and so has another month and then I’m afraid he may be posted and that would be a great pity, for he is one of the few remaining “old originals” and one of the nicest people in the mess. Major Cameron is still here, though he volunteered for the Far East several months ago and has been promised that he will be going.

A new lady M.O. – Morley – arrived about a week ago and we had met her and liked her at 121 when we were billeted at Bayeux. She could not be nicer or easier to live with; we really are awfully lucky. A third woman might have spoilt things, but she will help and even now she is company for Peggy while I am on this outpost of the Empire. Enough for the moment.

Goodnight!

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