Weekend Visits to East Grinstead Hospital

Heroes Remember

Weekend Visits to East Grinstead Hospital

Transcript

Interviewer: So tell us about your occupation while overseas during the wartime effort? Well it was secretarial work, most of it classified at the time. I don't suppose it matters much now, it was then. Our hours were quite firm through the week and so my weekends were free and I joined this marvellous group of women and we went down to the hospital. Arlene Hasselt, she's dead now, dear soul, but she instigated this going down to the hospital, the burns hospital and burns hospitals are not fragrant. There are problems and many people find that difficult but after traipsing around hospitals with my mother, I never... I have a strong stomach, nothing bothers it. And so I loved going down there and helping with the burn patients all we could. Anything they wanted. We entertained them. A lot of them had problems, of course, with the burns and they had been very handsome men and they didn't maybe look quite so handsome in their own eyes particularly and, uh, they were limited sometimes in things they could do because they'd have parts of the arm being grafted and so on. And so we were able to help them in any way we could. Go out with them, show them how proud of them we were and at the time we were all reasonably attractive young women, I guess and it boosted their morale. That was a lot of it! You couldn't help but love them, they were wonderfully courageous men from all over, mostly Canadians there. The ones I worked with most were in the Canadian wing. Actually my husband was the first one in the new Canadian wing that the government gave to the hospital in East Grinstead because so many Canadian flyers were burned and they had been treating them in the English part which was jammed and so the Canadian government had this wing built and he was the first one in it; yeah. He was in the English ward at the time. He had moved over and one of the nurses, Sally, her name was said, “Come over and meet this guy, he likes red heads.” My hair was a horrible shade of red, just absolutely horrible but anyway she said, “Come and meet him, he'd like to see a redhead, he likes redheads.” So I went over and he was bandaged all up. I never could see really what length he was or anything. His one eye was uncovered and part of his face and his hand was badly burned. It had goo all over it but I was used to goo so there was nothing in that. He put his hand up and I put my hand in it and he said, “I'm going to marry you!” It was that simple. From that day on we never were apart.

Description

Mrs. Hubbard describes her weekend activities of visiting the burn patients at East Grinstead Hospital and how she came to meet her husband

Shirley Hubbard

Mrs. Shirley Hubbard was born in St. Clair, Michigan January 4, 1924. Her family moved to Canada and her father served in WWI. Having a keen desire to honour her father’s commitment, and without reservation, she joined the Women’s Division, Royal Canadian Air Force and had the opportunity to travel overseas and serve in London, England. Mrs. Hubbard served in an administrative role but believes her most important contribution to wartime service was visiting and caring for the burn victims of East Grinstead Hospital in London, England. These soldiers would later be known as “The Guinea Pigs.” It is here that she met her husband and became a dedicated member of the Guniea Pig Club. To this day, she remains a proud member of this association. She spends most of her time doing volunteer work and presently resides in Mission, BC with her family.

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