"YEOWOMEN"

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2667, 12 January 1916, Page 3

"YEOWOMEN"

A TRIUMPH OF HOSPITAL OKUAJSISAIION A complete unit, with sixteen to twenty motor-ambulances, ' organised, worked, and driven by women, lias this month been added to the British Army. The women will drive their own cars end look after them in every sort of way. One single male mechanic, and that is all, is to bo attached to the whole unit. These ambulances may, of ccursej at any moment be summoned from their base in France to hurry over any typo of winter-worn road to the neighbourhood of the filing line. What strength and endurance and pluck such work demands from women can easily be understood by anyone! who has ever tried to swing a car in cold weather or repair it by tlio roadside even in summer. Perhaps the work is too hard for women. I would certainly plead for another mechanic to start, the cold ' and reluctant cars, but what I am ■ concerned, with now is the very notable'fact that for the first time under official recognition women, have been allowed to share in what may be called a- male department of warfare. The Yeomanry Nursing Association, who have just extracted this recognition from the War Office, deserve every compliment that can be paid them; and. the success is worth some emphasis as one Df a series of victories for women workers and organisations ; at the top of which is, of course,, the Voluntary Aid Detachment. :; The actual work of the yeoman nurses in France and Bolgium has been in progross since war was declared. The personal history is in itself full of interest. iThe captain of the newambulance unit, after failing to get any official sanction in England, went out to Antwerp in September and was starting a large hospital for Belgians there when the German shells began to fall in the town. She then went to Ghent, and, being interested in several cases, refused to leave when the Germans entered.. They told her 6ho must be sent to Germany, and a flood of idiomatic English to theeffect met her, wlien, with characteristic directness, she approached the German gelieral and his staff: "I shall not go to Germany," she said, and presently, in front of the German headquarters, she got into a car, and, after bluffing sentries, made her way to Holland, ana so home. , Exactly a week later she reached Calais with an ambulance car. Presently a hospital for .Belgians was established there, and with a number of yeomiui colleagues—all clad in the busi-ness-like khaki uniform that has now been recognised even by . the War Office—this invincible British woman has done a year's yeoman service for sick and wounded Belgians. The nurses drove their cars to the front so long as they were- permitted. They'even designed and took out to the Belgian lines Iteld kitchens and a huge Daimler bath ambulance, which provided Belgian soldiers at the trenches with hot Baths at will. But apart from any freakish or spectacular achievement, these women have for a year and more run a considerable hospital and its ambulances entirely by themselves. They havo fed themBelves at their own expense; and by doing their own household work, by being their own orderlies, as well as sisters and nurse's, by driving and cleaning their own cars, they have made such a, success on the economical side of tho work that the money laboriously collected in England has all been spent/ on .the direct service of the wounded, not on establishment charges.' .Most of this,has beeirdone in. the face of disTOuiagement;."' " be yeoman nurses —whose khaki uniform on 'moils..than-.one occasion in Ghent made.-. German .sentries, jump with momentary'" terror—were, up till'-the pre- . sent triumphant date, in some Bort pariahs. 'This feat of the "yeowomen"—who . have struggled against a certain amount of ridicule in England since, they started a horse ambulance some six years' ago—is. worth emphasis because ~t 13 only one instance, striking but by no means unique, of the complete -triumph of women workers during the . last few months. . The great victory was really won by the Voluntary Aid Detachment early in the autumn. The V.A.D.— initlifts wliich 'have become a household word—are now' busy in every sort of Kne of activity in France as well as in England. The .first detachment that I knew in Franco were graciously permitted as a favour to occupy a truck or two at a station terminus where "theypolishe"up the handles so carefullee" that even the station managers began : to recognise their worth. They fitted up the trucks with their own neat and ingenious carpentry. . Outside they kept a Vestal fire , always burning and always boiling hot water. How many wounded men they havo supplied with cheering cups and other solace I forget; but it amounts to many thousands. Many

well-known women lent their hand, among them Miss Lloyd George, to this modest work. What was already a great organisation consented to do anything useful it was allowed to do, however small. The eventual triumph, was always certain, but official authority was slow and apparently reluctant. Happily, this autumn all barriers gave way, and to-day the V.A.D. are everywhere, and am probably the most potent and persistent agent we have in the campaign of practical working economy. They are doing what is after all their proper work in the hospitals; and do-, iiiß it vory well under and along with nurses and sisters of longer training and experience. But the theory of the V.A.D. nurse which seoms to be crowing into favour is that she should be a "handy man—handy afoot, handy ashoro," a chemist, a chauffeur, a nurse, a carpenter, a cook. As an example, one little group is doing all the housework in the hotel which is the headquarters of the Bed Cross. In all women'b activities, small or large, that I have observed during this war, what most strikes a man is the economy of organisation. I do not know —it would make a good debating question —whether women make as good organisers as men; but they certainly excel men in attention to detail. Almost everything English is, so to say, over-capitalised, partly because women have little share in the organisation. Perhaps for the converse reason that Frenchwomen take so large a share in tho business of their country, the French are singularly successful in avoiding over-capitalisation. What is impressed upon observers in France at the present moment is the steady advance to efficient economy likely to follow the, wholly remarkable triumph, only now becoming obvious, of women workers and organisers.