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VOLUNTARY AID DETACHMENTS > NORMA HANSON, Huddersfield, BRC, VADs

A young nurse finds adventure

Norma Hanson wanted to help out and go places. As a young naval VAD, she boarded a train bound for Plymouth. From there she transferred on to Portsmouth, Liverpool, and then overseas. Throughout Norma nursed patients, made friends, met her husband, and found adventure far from home.


		How did you become involved? " Everybody wanted to do something. People were Air Raid Wardens or at First Aid Posts. And teenagers joined things like the Red Cross. I'd always thought I would like to be a nurse. So I thought, ‘oh well, we'll join the Red Cross, my friend and I. They're wanting people, let's join'. So we did."

What was your first job?
" We had to go first of all to Plymouth in the summer. It was a very hot day. My mother and a friend of hers went on the train to Manchester to get the train that took us to Plymouth direct. They had to push us onto the train to be able to shut the door! All the trains were so crowded.

We just sat on our cases in the corridor right as far as Devon before we got a seat. The trains were so, so busy with the service people. We had these stiff white collars on for the first time. This was the outdoor uniform with this stiff white collar, like a man's collar and the black tie. And oh, it was just so hot being cooped up in this train! Eventually we arrived in Plymouth. It took us all day to get there.

Plymouth was a naval base and there was a naval hospital there. Everyone who was working there was navy. We had lots of fun. Of course, Plymouth was being bombed. It was a badly bombed place. You'd have to get up in the night and go into the cellars."


		Did you get any time off? " We just used to have one day off a week and a weekend every month we had off. And if you were on night duty, you worked from 8 o'clock at night until 8 o'clock next morning. That went on every night for 28 nights; you didn't have any time off until you'd completed the 28 nights. So you were just working all the time. There was sadness as well. But it's like every hospital. You feel sad and you talk about it with your friends. You have to sort of put it behind you. There were lots of social things going on. There'd be cinemas and the hotels would perhaps have a dance. Maybe you'd get an invitation to go along to a dance; these would be with servicemen. They would call their land barracks HMS, as though it was a ship. Everything was called HMS something."

What happened next?
" The news came to the camp, to the Sergeant Commander. ‘Oh, you're to go to Liverpool.' Oh right, so I had to pack up my things. You were issued with a tropical uniform so you knew you were going somewhere warm. They didn't tell you where you were going and you weren't supposed to tell anyone in your quarters. But they knew you were going.

When we got on board, the cabins had all been converted into accommodation for us.

I had a bunk; there were six of us. They were all VADs.

It took us six weeks to get to Sydney, because you couldn't get through the Mediterranean. V-J Day I was in Sydney and thought,

‘Well, the war's over now, at least we won't get torpedoed going home!' "


	FACTS VADs wore either a British Red Cross or St. John Ambulance uniform depending on which organisation they belonged to. For their indoor uniform they had to buy 3 dresses, 12 aprons, 3 belts, 6 collars, 3 pairs of cuffs, 4 caps, 2 pairs of black shoes, and 6 pairs of stockings, for which they received an allowance. Find out more about Uniform.


	FACTS As a port, Plymouth was a target for the Luftwaffe, or German Air Force. Up to 200,000 people worked directly or indirectly for the Royal Navy, making it a target for heavy bombing. Over 50,000 houses were damaged. Find out more about the Bombing of UK Cities.


	FACTS Members of St. John Ambulance and the British Red Cross often had ‘entertainments’ organised for them. These ranged from dances and concert parties, which were often fundraising events, to duties in cinemas, which Cadets often attended. As well as being fun, the dances held by VADs also helped restore the strength of injured Service men.