Caring on the Home Front - Volunteer memories from World War Two

Any special memories?

“I got asked if I would go up to a geriatric hospital in Fareham. The patients were dears. You couldn’t fault them.
One [day], the Sister said to me, ‘Have you ever seen an ulcerated leg?’
I said, ‘no I haven’t.’
And she said ‘Right, come over here. This is a beauty.’

That’s how I learned to do an ulcerated leg. My mother had an ulcerated leg when she was elderly, and I was able to help with that and bandage it up for her.

The bedsores were very bad. Bedsore was where you were confined to a bed and the continuous pressure causes a sore, which has to be treated every day.”

How did you like it?

“I might very well have gone into nursing but for my experiences [at the geriatric hospital]. Not that I disliked it, but to me it was a bit sad to see people like that. There wasn’t an awful lot of joy at that time. “

Listen to Connie Robinson’s story

Did other volunteers work with the elderly?

LILLIAN BARRON:

“The Red Cross were given a room [for a health clinic] in the Guinness Trust, a big block of flats. The Hammersmith one was quite large. It was quite an effort to get round to all the people who needed it.

We used to meet there once a month and visit all the old people, or anybody that was sick, lonely. The average age was probably about 60; all on the poorer side of life and hadn’t got much money.

They were very pleased to see us.
They’d probably been stuck up in their room with nobody to talk to. No outlook. All they could look out onto was a courtyard. They couldn’t get out at all. It was just something for them to look forward to. It was a social event.

The visits were, generally speaking, either [people] we thought needed a visit because of some injury; or people who couldn’t get down to us.”

What did you do?

“The visits were, generally speaking, either [people] we thought needed a visit because of some injury; or people who couldn’t get down to us.

We had one gentleman who was diabetic and he got gangrene in his toes and we had to persuade him to get the doctor in. He just would not. The nearest hospital then, in those days, was across the Broadway at the West London Hospital, and that was a bit of an ordeal for the elderly.”

Any special memories?

“Some of them that were able-bodied came down to the clinic to briefly have a chat.
They used to come with all their problems. A lot of them not really wanting anything done. They’d come with their odd cuts. It was really somewhere to come and talk about their illnesses or afflictions. It was a social meeting for them.”

Facts

During World War One bombing raids on London by German airships (Zeppelins), although fairly frequent, were nowhere near as destructive as bombing raids in World War Two. As well as this, rationing was not as strict or long lasting. Together, this meant that people who had lived through World War One as civilians would have been very aware of the different, and more far-reaching, effects of World War Two.

Facts

The British Red Cross and St. John Ambulance trained their members in First Aid and Home Nursing, and other subjects like Child Care. The services the members then provided were vital during the war, as treatment by trained doctors was very expensive before the National Health Service was founded in 1948. Find out more about First Aid and Home Nursing.

Facts

The JWO ran all sorts of services concerned with the welfare of both civilians and servicemen. For example, during the Blitz they ran hostels for elderly people who had lost their homes in air raids, ran nurseries for children, and rest homes for Civil Defence workers. Find out more about the help they also gave to wounded members of the armed forces. Find out more about Welfare Work.