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Stories
Stories
Each month we’ll update this page and reward the senders of the best story, our ‘star story’, with a magnum of Champagne or a luxury food hamper.
If you would like your story to be considered for this page, please send an email to sam@who-remembers-me.com
We look forward to hearing from you soon!!
If you would like your story to be considered for this page, please send an email to sam@who-remembers-me.com
We look forward to hearing from you soon!!
Ex-Army nurses reunited after almost 40 years!
This month’s STAR STORY comes from Pat Walker in Edinburgh, Scotland, who with our help, has recently reconnected and met up with three dear friends - all ex-Army nurses - after nearly 40 years apart.
Pat, now 62, explains:
“All four of us - Cary, Rae, Pam and me - joined the Queen Alexander’s Royal Army Nursing Corps and we met in 1968/9 at the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot after basic training.
Cary was already a trained SEN, our senior on the wards and the first to be promoted, the only one in fact, to make a career in the Army. Rae and Pam were the ‘babies’, the two youngest in an intake of 80 and then there was me.
We were all close friends and shared adjoining rooms and records, and invariably shoulders to cry on after boyfriends had let us down.
As the only females among several barracks of British Regiments, one German barrack and one American barrack, there were invites galore and when duties permitted we went. We had such fun!
One night, shortly before we were due to leave for BMH Munster, we had all gone to the Rugby Club for a drink with friends who would follow us out on the next draft.
I had left my packing to the last minute and so was supposed to leave early. Well, I didn’t leave early enough and by the time I got back, the gates to the ‘Spiders’ (our accommodation) were locked and I didn’t have a sleeping out pass.
I would have been in a lot of trouble but I knew there was a back way in through a hole in the fence near F Spider – I wasn’t sure where it was, but it was worth a try!
Anyway I ran all the way down the hill along the fence and at the last minute caught my heels in something that sent me flying base over apex into a huge bank of nettles!
As luck would have it, I had found the hole alright, but unfortunately no dock leaves to save my bacon. I hurried off to bed but was so badly stung I had to sleep in a bath of cold water.
In the morning the gardener came early and noticed my bright, tomato-red dressing gown showing through the windows, suspected an accident and called the housekeeper.
He had made so much noise bashing the window that I had just enough time to escape to my room to get packed and dressed and away on the transport.
Two years later I came home for discharge and actually overheard a new recruit telling someone the tale and boy had it grown legs! It’s now a part of Army nursing folklore I expect.
Those were great times but by the end of our training four years later we had all gone our separate ways; we had all, bar one, left for ‘civvy street’ and had lost touch.
Pam left to marry a Guardsman, Tony, and Rae had already met her future husband Steve, a Para.
I completed my training and married my Bandsman Jonny after being admonished by Sister Tutor for holding hands going on duty, then left a year later on the day I got my exam results, for Edinburgh.
Jonny and I made two flying visits to Aldershot and met both Rae and Cary quite by accident. Rae was pushing a pram with her first son Chris while Steve was in Ireland.
A year later we bumped into Cary at the traffic lights and managed a few words but when we circled couldn’t find our way back to exchange addresses.
That was the last I saw of my nursing friends until last year when I found Rae on Who-Remembers-Me.com. We got in touch and met up with our spouses here in Scotland! It was brilliant to catch up.
She had sporadically kept in touch with Pam and so we met up with her in spring 2008 this year, and finally Cary, who was in Devon, recalled Rae’s married name and found both of us!
The circle is now complete and we will definitely be keeping in touch. In fact, two of us have just spent a long weekend in beautiful sunshine with Rae, recalling old times and old friends - all thanks to you and after nearly 40 years apart!”
Pat, now 62, explains:
“All four of us - Cary, Rae, Pam and me - joined the Queen Alexander’s Royal Army Nursing Corps and we met in 1968/9 at the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot after basic training.
Cary was already a trained SEN, our senior on the wards and the first to be promoted, the only one in fact, to make a career in the Army. Rae and Pam were the ‘babies’, the two youngest in an intake of 80 and then there was me.
We were all close friends and shared adjoining rooms and records, and invariably shoulders to cry on after boyfriends had let us down.
As the only females among several barracks of British Regiments, one German barrack and one American barrack, there were invites galore and when duties permitted we went. We had such fun!
One night, shortly before we were due to leave for BMH Munster, we had all gone to the Rugby Club for a drink with friends who would follow us out on the next draft.
I had left my packing to the last minute and so was supposed to leave early. Well, I didn’t leave early enough and by the time I got back, the gates to the ‘Spiders’ (our accommodation) were locked and I didn’t have a sleeping out pass.
I would have been in a lot of trouble but I knew there was a back way in through a hole in the fence near F Spider – I wasn’t sure where it was, but it was worth a try!
Anyway I ran all the way down the hill along the fence and at the last minute caught my heels in something that sent me flying base over apex into a huge bank of nettles!
As luck would have it, I had found the hole alright, but unfortunately no dock leaves to save my bacon. I hurried off to bed but was so badly stung I had to sleep in a bath of cold water.
In the morning the gardener came early and noticed my bright, tomato-red dressing gown showing through the windows, suspected an accident and called the housekeeper.
He had made so much noise bashing the window that I had just enough time to escape to my room to get packed and dressed and away on the transport.
Two years later I came home for discharge and actually overheard a new recruit telling someone the tale and boy had it grown legs! It’s now a part of Army nursing folklore I expect.
Those were great times but by the end of our training four years later we had all gone our separate ways; we had all, bar one, left for ‘civvy street’ and had lost touch.
Pam left to marry a Guardsman, Tony, and Rae had already met her future husband Steve, a Para.
I completed my training and married my Bandsman Jonny after being admonished by Sister Tutor for holding hands going on duty, then left a year later on the day I got my exam results, for Edinburgh.
Jonny and I made two flying visits to Aldershot and met both Rae and Cary quite by accident. Rae was pushing a pram with her first son Chris while Steve was in Ireland.
A year later we bumped into Cary at the traffic lights and managed a few words but when we circled couldn’t find our way back to exchange addresses.
That was the last I saw of my nursing friends until last year when I found Rae on Who-Remembers-Me.com. We got in touch and met up with our spouses here in Scotland! It was brilliant to catch up.
She had sporadically kept in touch with Pam and so we met up with her in spring 2008 this year, and finally Cary, who was in Devon, recalled Rae’s married name and found both of us!
The circle is now complete and we will definitely be keeping in touch. In fact, two of us have just spent a long weekend in beautiful sunshine with Rae, recalling old times and old friends - all thanks to you and after nearly 40 years apart!”