ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio Nottingham on behalf of Joyce Hollingworth with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

D-Day came about while I was in my second year and I was working in the hospital annex at Brentwood and the whole hospital was emptied ready to receive casualties from the invasion. We were given two days off a week, which was unheard of until the hospital filled up. I remember working in one ward filled with 20 men who hadn’t got a leg between them and their stumps had become infected but it was the beginning of penicillin. So we gave them penicillin, which was very sticky, painful stuff to inject but we gave it to the men every three hours and they did wonderfully well. They often had to go back to the operating theatre to be tidied up but they recovered well and I was thrilled to have been in on that.

In my third year I was acting staff nurse and was on a ward, which was known as a dirty surgical ward because it dealt with all kinds of infections, boils, carbuncles. The ward was designed with the operating theatre in the middle, men one end and women at the other and again patients who used to be in for six or seven weeks were only in for two or three because of the introduction of penicillin. We injected it into the muscles and it was very painful for the men but they were marvelous chaps, full of beans, they teased me to death! I couldn’t possibly tell you the things they talked about!
But it was tough, very difficult times for all involved.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.