Enid Bagnold

[Guest mruk]

Deleted

[jay dubaya]

Hi Dave, there's a cheaper copy on Abe and also a singed copy on e**y for £50. Enid's book 'The Happy Foreigner' is online here

Enid Bagnold, the daughter of the Commander of the Royal Engineers, was born in Rochester, Kent in 1889. Her early childhood was spent in Jamaica but was educated in England and Switzerland.

In 1908 Bagnold began attending Walter Sicket's School of Art. She developed a talent for etching and while in London became friends with Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry.

On the outbreak of the First World War Bagnold joined the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) and worked as a nurse at the Royal Herbert Hospital, Woolwich. Her account of this experience, Diary Without Dates (1917) was so critical of hospital administration that the military authorities arranged for her dismissal. Determined to help the war effort, Bagnold went to France and worked as a volunteer driver. Later she wrote about this in The Happy Foreigner (1920).

In 1920 Bagnold married the head of Reuters News Agency, Sir Roderick Jones.

Enid Bagnold died in 1981 at the age of 91.

cheers, Jon

ps got a bargin copy of 'Testament of Youth' for 54p and it's in large type

[jay dubaya]

Dave, another to look out for is Mary Bordens 'The Forbidden Zone'. She was an American traveling in Europe at the out break of war, and stayed on to run a field hospital in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme,

cheers, Jon

[jay dubaya]

Dave, not wanting to sidetrack too far but have you heard of Dorothy Lawrence. Certainly a book I would like to read.

cheers, Jon

[Berenice]

Just read Bagnold's book and was struck by her utter coldness towards her patients and people in general. Not someone I'd have wanted to take care of me given a choice.

[Sue Light]

Enid Bagnold was a vitriolic critic of military hospitals and in particular the trained nurse. But her elegant writing picks up the atmosphere of hospital life exactly and places her readers right in the middle of those gloomy wards. I think it's a gloriously descriptive book and one that says a great deal about hospital life during the war.

It's pretty staggering that so many of these well-bred young women chose to serve in such humble positions as VADs. They would never, ever, have worked as nurses had war not come along, and a great many of them were not suited to it at all. However, without them - more than 100,000 of them - there would have been no care at all in most hospitals and the nursing services would have collapsed. The war necessarily involved both men and women who weren't cut out for the roles they found themselves in. I feel that one problem is that society, both then and now, has often chosen to look on them as 'angels' and 'heroines.' They were neither. They were good, bad and indifferent, but nevertheless essential.

Sue

[CarylW]

I haven't read anything by this author but I will do now. Which book is the original poster referring to? (post content deleted)

Found that Project Gutenburg have a copy of two of her books available to download to Kindle (or read online)

A Diary Without Dates and The Happy Foreigner here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=enid+bagnold

I notice that the author wrote in a Diary Without Dates:

I apologize to those whom I may hurt. Can I soothe them by pleading that one may only write what is true for

oneself?

Caryl

[Sue Light]

Caryl

Yes, start with 'A Diary Without Dates' which covers her time as a VAD at the Herbert Hospital, Woolwich - a bus ride away from her home. The authorities were not impressed, and she was dismissed shortly after publication. She then went on to work as a driver, which is covered in 'The Happy Foreigner.'

Sue

[CarylW]

Caryl

Yes, start with 'A Diary Without Dates' which covers her time as a VAD at the Herbert Hospital, Woolwich - a bus ride away from her home. The authorities were not impressed, and she was dismissed shortly after publication. She then went on to work as a driver, which is covered in 'The Happy Foreigner.'

Thanks Sue. I will

[Berenice]

I read the Gutenberg download.

@Sue: sorry, compared to the other diaries and accounts she comes over as a completely cold and nasty fish. I am aware of the sacrifices made by women either as VADs or nurses, I'm not at all unsympathetic to them. I read some two dozen accounts during the past months. But Bagnold stands out and not in a nice way. She doesn't just direct her vitriol at the hospital management - which I would understand - she directs it also at the patients at times and demonstrates an almost entire lack of compassion.

I might add that there are others who stand out, LaMotte for instance. But she quite clearly is with the patients and rages because she obviously has seen too much pain and slaughter to keep quiet. No problem reading her letters, even though they were often far more violent.

[Sue Light]

Berenice

I don't mean to defend her - I don't like her either - but I feel she was in many ways typical of a great many VADs. They were not gentle, caring people - they were caught up in war and wanted to be involved for a whole variety of reasons, many of them not particularly philanthropic. But they were still desperately needed as pairs of hands, if nothing else. I think it helps the overall picture that this type of account does depict the reality of hospital life as opposed to the rose-tinted view of nursing that's often portrayed.

Sue

[Berenice]

Oh, I completely agree with you that this sort of diary is absolutely necessary as a record of the time! Please do not misunderstand me. I already have inferred, from several of the other diaries, that such women existed and that they often clashed with those who had humanitarian reasons for helping, rather than for instance peer pressure or a means to escape a stifling home or in some cases even the wish to find a husband.

It was just so startling to read her today, my skin literally crawled at the end. And yes, it sort of answered quite a few questions I had.

What do you think of MacDonald's "Roses of No Man's Land"? I just bought it and am about to embark on it.

[Sue Light]

I've always thought that it says a great deal about the war but very little of any quality about nurses and nursing. It relies on a few well-worn sources, but just skims over the surface. I think it's OK for people who know a fair bit about the war and want to see where the nursing services fitted in, but useless for anyone who wants to study wartime medical and nursing care in any depth. But lots of fans here on the forum!

Sue

[Berenice]

Could you suggest a particular work then for the latter aspect?

I am slowly but steadily plowing through every diary/account I can find on archive.org and gutenberg.org as we speak. It would be nice to have a comprehensive list of the books available somewhere, so you don't miss any, but I must have a further 2-3 dozen PDFs sitting on my harddrive. I read Nightingale's and a few other "standard" works on nursing published shortly before the Great War already. Also Mary Borden's Forbidden Zone - and some seemingly unrelated works, like Vicinus' Suffer and Be Still or Victorian Women, to get a basic idea of women at the time.

I am somewhat frustrated in getting a real handle on what wartime nursing entailed in detail, what impact it had on especially the lay-sisters/VAD nurses, who did which jobs (very vague information on that so far) and also - what I am looking most for - how it affected these girls emotionally and in their relation to men and war per se.

[Sue Light]

There's so little written by, or about, British nurses and nursing during the Great War that it's no surprise that Lyn Macdonald retains such a great following with 'Roses of No Man's Land.' Most of what's available is written by VADs. I've got a list of books on my website here:

http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/9.html

Of those, I can recommend 'Fighting Different Wars' by Janet S. K. Watson. It's a great book and I think it's wide range might fit your needs better than some of the others. It covers far more than nursing, but it does give an excellent account of one family, the Beales of Standen in Sussex, and through family letters the background of women like Enid Bagnold is made very clear (though I suggest the Beales were rather nicer people).

And yesterday I posted a thread about Kirsty Harris' 'More than Bombs and Bandages' which relates to Australian nurses during the Great War, but so much of it could be applied to British nurses and I feel it's perhaps the clearest and most thorough account of GW nursing I've read. Just forget about Australia (sorry Kirsty!) and substitute 'British' and it still makes a lot of sense.

Sue

[Berenice]

Thanks for the suggestions, I will check up on them!

Currently I believe almost any background would do for me. Obviously it's not just me who is so frustrated with the dearth of concise information. Its almost as bad with regard to doctors, who tended to write about anything but what they actually did and faced. Is "War Surgery 1914-18" at least worth the money, as it's rather steep?

[Sue Light]

I haven't read it yet, though I think others on here have - I know Michelle (Young) has a copy. Hopefully someone might put a review here.

Sue

[Berenice]

I just downloaded Kirsty Harris' book and will read it more or less parallely with MacDonald's. It will be an interesting exercise I believe.

You say a comprehensive work on British nurses has been commissioned. Who is writing it and when is it due, if I may ask?

[Sue Light]

It's being written by Yvonne McEwen of the University of Edinburgh, who a few years ago was appointed official historian to the Army nursing services and commissioned to write a four volume history from the nineteenth century to the present day. I'm not sure if that's been altered since, but I think the intention was for the first volume to cover the period up to the end of the Great War. Last year I think I saw it was to be published this year, but now all appears to have gone quiet, so who knows.

Sue

[Berenice]

Hmm. Maybe they will wait until 2014 then. I guess a lot of them do.

[seaJane]

I have referenced on this site before a (mostly pictorial) history of the American Nurse Corps contribution to GW medical services but have had an attack of brain fudge and can't remember the title at all. It's in the office so I should be able to post the details on Monday: it has a useful bibliography of memoirs. I'll ask my colleagues in the QARNNS archive whether they have any GW memoirs too.

[Berenice]

I have referenced on this site before a (mostly pictorial) history of the American Nurse Corps contribution to GW medical services but have had an attack of brain fudge and can't remember the title at all. It's in the office so I should be able to post the details on Monday: it has a useful bibliography of memoirs. I'll ask my colleagues in the QARNNS archive whether they have any GW memoirs too.

That would be great! I'll appreciate any medical information in relation to the GW.

[Michelle Young]

I found War Surgery very interesting, describing the techniques that were developed to cope with an entirely new kind of warfare and wounds. It is written by medical personnel but they have done their best to make it readable for the layman.

I have a book written fairly recently whic I reveiwed here

http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/book-reviews/96-personal-accounts-and-diaries/551-its-a-longway-to-tipperary.html

Michelle

[Berenice]

Hmm, where do I find that review exactly?

[CGM]

here?

Yes, that seems to work.

CGM