Hospital Work
Heroes Remember
Hospital Work
Transcript
Interviewer: Do you remember when
you went to France?
Do I remember?
Interviewer: Yes?
Oh, yes. I remember going quite well.
And I remember before I went.
I was going on a ship and
I said "well, I think I should take a few
biscuits or something to eat,"
and I said to my father,
"I can have a few biscuits, can't I?"
And he said "What do you want biscuits for?"
Well I said, "you know, I might get
hungry going over there."
So he gave me a little bag of biscuits.
But before I went to France there was an
interesting episode going from the
hospital to our boarding place.
I like to walk, if possible, for a little fresh
air and different exercise and suddenly
I got something in my eye.
Oh, it was terrible. And some old woman
came up to me "Oh dearie, can't I help you?"
Oh and she smelt so smell of whiskey
or something. And I said "No, I'll be alright,"
and just then I saw the hooded
light of a chemists shop.
So I held the wall as I went along and
I got into the shop and he looked at me and
he saw what was the matter and
he fetched his magnet right away and
he took a piece of steel out of my eye.
Oh what relief. Oh, it was wonderful.
Oh, I felt better at once.
So then, I proceeded and went to the
home where I was boarding, and it was
all quiet so I thought "well, I'll take a bath,
nobody about." So I ran the water,
of course the room was pretty dark,
could hardly see anything because
we didn't have any lights inside.
I just got into the bath when ‘boom'
and all the noise and the sirens and
they kept on and on and on.
And I thought, "what was the matter?"
I got out of the bath and I peeked one
little scrap out of a slot in the blind and
what was there but a, a not a submarine...
what do you call them?
Interviewer: An aircraft?
Yes, a Zeppelin!
Interviewer: Oh, a Zeppelin!
A Zeppelin. It was so near,
if I could put my arm out of the window,
I'm sure I could have touched it.
Well, do you know what they did?
They put their lights on then, as they went by.
Cheeky things! I was there in the '18 flu,
you know when that terrible flu was there.
That was awful. I remember the doctor
coming in one night and he said
"Don't call me unless you absolutely have to,
if somebody's very bad with pneumonia."
And he looked so tired, you kind of
felt sorry for him really.
But I had quite a few and I nursed them
through and got them so they could go back.
Well I had one who was just a young fellow
but he was very big.
He was about 18 I imagine.
Oh he kept crying for his mommy,
crying for his mommy.
Oh I said "I'll be your mommy tonight."
I gave him a hug and laid him down
and he went to sleep.
But they came and they said
"We've room for one more, one more."
And they took him.
Well I was so sorry because he wasn't strong
strong enough to bear a trip just then.
If they'd waited two more days he
would have been alright.
I heard later via the grape-vine,
because we're not supposed to write
anything, via the grape-vine that he saw
his mommy and then he died.
So I felt sad about that.
Then of course at night, now if you were
on duty you just stayed there, put.
I used to walk up and down that floor all
night long. Up and down, up and down.
Some of the men would be very upset
when it was a bright moonlight you see and
we were in the direct flight between
Germany and London.
We had big red crosses on our ceiling but
we didn't trust the Germans.
So I'd walk up and down and see that they
were alright, nothing happened.
Another night a bomb dropped just behind
us and horses were tethered there.
We didn't know they were tethered there.
I suppose they'd just came in late at
night and tethered..
I know my husband rode a horse,
quite a few of the officers rode a horse,
which he said was very scary because they
were higher up than the, than the other
people. Anyway, the noise of those horses,
it was terrific . I didn't know horses screamed.
They screamed and screamed. It was terrible.
I've only heard that once again.
That's when I went to Africa and our
train hit an elephant.
Oh, that screamed just the same.
I felt I could bury my head in whatever
there was to put it in.
That was the scream. Well then of course
they sold all the meat for meat for
everybody to eat the horses.
So we had horse meat often, often.
You got used to it, it's a little sweeter
I think than beef, but it was meat.
We didn't get much meat anyway.
Description
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.
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:
- 08:14
- Person Interviewed:
- Alice MacKinnon
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- First World War
- Branch:
- Army
- Occupation:
- Nursing Sister
Related Videos
Off Duty Activities
Ms. MacKinnon remembers the details of meeting the Canadian Army officer who would later become her husband.
- Date modified: