257216 Nurse Rosemary De Las Casas St Thomas' Hospital from:Oxfordshire Rosemary De Las Casas became a nurse to support the war effort after her brother, Hugh, was killed in action early in 1940.
After her initial training, Rosemary worked at St Thomas's Hospital in London, where most of the operating theatres and staff accommodation had moved into the basement for safety.
The nurses stayed in a large room one storey underground, with the lovely old retired nurse who looked after them.
In her time off, she used to go off into London with her friend. Nurses in uniform were treated specially by the taxi drivers. The American servicemen tried to get into their taxis but the drivers were brilliant and refused to let them.
Any police who needed hospital treatment were brought to us at St Thomas's. The police and the nurses were a great mix. If anything went wrong, or the nurses needed help, oh boy, they were right there!
Rosemary remembers being stuck above ground level, holding a jar of thermometers. If they broke a thermometer, they had to pay for it, so she was being very careful. Then she heard a Doodlebug starting to doodle above her when the noise stopped, you knew the bomb was about to come down. When the Doodlebug hit the other end of the hospital, two policemen in pyjamas helped her to protect her thermometers and made sure they didn't crash to the ground.
|