Search results for ""Author Vivien Newman""

This recently discovered memoir gives an intimate glimpse into the Great War service of Beatrice Hopkinson, a Territorial Forces Nursing Service Sister, who remained steadfastly and true to her profession as she nursed through shot and shell. Dr Vivien Newman's meticulously researched Introduction brings Beatrices world out of the shadows, juxtaposing her war service against the background of the Army Nursing Service, where dedicated, professional nurses worked closer to the Front Line than women could have ever previously imagined doing. Beatrice was selected for the most onerous type of duty in the bitterest phase of the war. She had arrived in St Omer in the summer of 1917 when the town was being continuously bombed. With her hospital under nightly attack, Beatrice simply got on with the job she had come to France to do: saving the lives and easing the dying of soldiers on the Western Front. For Beatrice, spring 1918 was marked by a sea of blood. Caught up in the British Armys headlong retreat when hospitals and patients risked being captured by the enemy, she and her rapid response team were rushed between several Casualty Clearing Stations in France and Belgium. They operated on thousands of soldiers wounded in Germanys final attempt to win the War. As the fortunes of war finally turned in the Allies favour, Beatrice advanced through Belgium, a land destroyed by war and enemy occupation. This diary gives rare insight into the realities of Front Line nursing through the eyes of someone who had never anticipated working for the Army but who, when her country called, willingly and steadfastly answered.

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Graverobbers, prime-movers in geo-politics, jailbirds, international football celebs. Such terms are not usually associated with women in the 1920s, as women returning docilely to the domestic cage at the end of the First World War has become part of the accepted narrative. Like many war and immediate post war myths, it does contain some truth, but the story of women between 1918 and 1928 is much more complex, often more positive and certainly far more interesting than previously suggested. _Changing Roles_ looks at some of the women who forged new identities for themselves whilst exploring how their own or their loved ones' wartime experiences influenced the roles they stepped into, sometimes reluctantly, frequently enthusiastically, often successfully. It explores how women fought back against the misogynistic climate of the 1920s, used the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act to achieve their goals, played their part as full citizens and how the legacy of their global endeavours, achievements and occasional failures is still with us today, spreading far beyond our shores. By telling the stories of both ordinary and extraordinary women whose actions disturbed the status quo, shook the Establishment to its core, and sent shock-waves across the Atlantic, this book presents a cast of fascinating characters ranging from crowned heads to girl gangs, business women to philanthropists, inviting readers to exclaim, Gosh, I never knew that!

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