Off Duty Activities
Heroes Remember
Off Duty Activities
Transcript
Well you know, we were never allowed to
dance in the war. Not once did we dance.
That was a long time. And people here,
you know nurses or anybody, they can't
understand why we couldn't have dances.
But they said they thought it was something
to do with the Crimean War.
We never did really hear why, why not.
But they had been dancing when they
should have been looking after the enemy.
But I don't know that but that's what they said.
But we used to have a little tea party if we
were off duty on Sunday and the Colonel
would be asked to send down maybe,
oh depends how many of us were off,
say it might be half a dozen,
maybe more or less.
He would send these fellows down
and we had games. Musical chairs or turn
the trencher and a few things like that.
And I think there was a piano there,
somewhere in the hall wherever we had the,
the tea party. Obviously I can't remember
what we had to eat but I'm sure we
had tea to drink, that's all I can remember.
Interviewer: So that's where you met your husband?
Yes, and I, I never really took much notice of him.
Until I heard somebody, another person say
"Who does so and so always come down to see?"
That was my Hugh you see.
"Who does he go down to see?" Well, I didn't know
he wanted to see me specially or anything.
Well anyway, that went on, we just were
getting pretty well worn out but I think sometimes
they had a weekend and even got to Paris,
but I was never lucky enough in that way, but um.
And then we sometimes could take a
walk to the beach, but we never went
in the water as far as I remember.
Never allowed in the water.
Interviewer: Was your husband the first
Canadian that you'd ever met?
I suppose he was really,
I never thought of that, I suppose he was.
Interviewer: So obviously you were
favourably impressed by Canadians.
Yes, I didn't mind him, I wasn't particularly
keen on him, but I, I liked him pretty well.
And then it came that he,
he had to go somewhere else.
And I know I went to the station to see some
of them off and he was to go with that lot.
And I, I said good-bye and another nurse
said to me "Do you think you'll ever see him again?"
and I said, "Oh, maybe I don't know, perhaps I will."
And I did because after I left France we all
had to go into a hospital in England and
be checked up you see.
And I had, by that time I had a bad heart,
you know with doing too much and too
long hours and one thing or another.
Because when we went out at night you see,
we had to go out when the moon was shining,
we had to go out, if we were off duty, but
as I said if you were on you just kept
walking up and down, up and down,
up and down, all night long.
But if you were off you took your blanket and
you went up, there was a little hill with
trees and some extension of other things there.
And we'd go and hide under the trees and
then one night, it was a terrible night,
a terrible night. And we had Chinese
near us, now we never knew that.
I never knew we had Chinese near us.
I knew we had Chinese if we went out
on the road or anything past our camp
because they would be digging the
trenches for us around the hospital.
They dug trenches for us to go in if it
got too bad at night.
And we were told if they came along
marching all together, not to look at
them and never to say a word.
And as they went by it was
just like a roll of thunder.
They were all talking at once,
and making so much noise.
And then it got so we knew there were
Chinese in the distance but we never
knew they were just past that hill.
Well, they were in high wire fences,
high wire fences with all barbed wire
on the top so they couldn't get out.
Well that night was so bad they couldn't
stand it I guess and they climbed those
fences and got over the top and of course
rushed through the woods right over us
and we each had our own blanket to us.
And they grabbed our blankets like this
and oh, I was hanging on to mine like death.
It was, blanket, you wouldn't get
another blanket anywhere.
And then they, they went on I guess and we.
And the bombing stopped and we had rescued
our blankets from the cheeky beggars, we said.
The 'cheeky beggars' we said.
Interviewer: So on nights where there was full moon
you had to be concerned about bombing attacks?
Yeah.
Interviewer: How far back from the front
would you have been?
Oh we could hear the guns but it was in the
distance of course, in the distance.
Interviewer: How many times was your hospital
attacked by bombers? Do you remember?
No, I can't remember. I know, I know we
always had to dash, dash out you know,
up into the trees.
That's if we were off duty,
but if you were on duty you stayed all the time.
I had one, one doctor came in oh and he tried
to get under one of the cots you know.
And he cut his knee so badly,
there wasn't room,
he thought it would be safe,
safer under there but it wasn't.
Then of course, when we landed in hospital
in London they said I had a V.D.H.
very dicky heart. Well, I think anybody would.
Interviewer: How long were you in the hospital?
How long?
Interviewer: Yes
Yes? Oh, not very long. My, my future husband
found me. I don't know how he found me.
But he heard which hospital the nurses were in
and he came with a big bunch of roses,
which I was very pleased with.
Description
Ms. MacKinnon remembers the details of meeting the Canadian Army officer who would later become her husband.
Alice MacKinnon
Alice MacKinnon was born in England on June 23, 1894. She received her nursing training at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and then volunteered for service as a Nursing Sister in the British Army during the First World War. While serving, she met and later married a Canadian Army officer and returned to Canada with him following the war. At the time of this interview, Mrs. MacKinnon was 102 years old and resided at the Veterans’ Wing of the Queen Elizabeth Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 09:21
- Person Interviewed:
- Alice MacKinnon
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- First World War
- Branch:
- Army
- Occupation:
- Nursing Sister
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Ms. MacKinnon speaks of arriving in France during the First World War, the deadly influenza epidemic of 1918 and several interesting stories from her hospital work.
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