241397 Nurse. Mary "Scottie" Etchells British Red Cross Mary Etchells was my great aunt. She originally nursed at Guys Hospital, London before coming to Sussex Lodge in 1915 (I think). She married a chap called Etchells, her certificate recognising her wartime service in the Red Cross has her as Mrs Mary Etchells.
My mother is long deceased and lost touch with Mary until the 1970s when she was found to be living in Helensburgh in Scotland, in rather poor circumstances, I believe. She moved to a little cottage in Girvan where she lived quite happily for a number of years and was regularly visited by my mother and father and me and my mother`s sister. They also spoke almost daily on the phone with her so that she was never really alone.
She is buried in Old Monkland Cemetery in Coatbridge, beside her late husband, who, according to the headstone was a descendant of an Archbishop of Canterbury. Amongst her meagre possessions was her Red Cross Wartime Certificate and a leather bound album full of autographs, poems, drawings and cartoons written by the soldiers, all officers she had nursed. This is probably my most prized possession.
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