Sunday, 15 November, 1942

G. H. N.

Sunday, 9 a.m.   

My Darling,

You will be surprised to receive this letter so soon after my last one but I am afraid I have a piece of bad news.  I cannot have my nights off next Sunday but I have to wait until the 27th.  Isn’t it too bad?  I had a feeling that something was going to happen and it has.

Do you think you could possible postpone your leave till the following week Darling?

I tried my utmost to get the 22nd but it was impossible.  Here’s what happened – two new wards have been opened and I have been put night staff nurse on one of them.  I was previously relief nurse and had relief nights off but now I have to have staff nurse's nights off and those that I want are booked up.  As it is, a friend of mine is postponing hers so that I might have them.  Do you see my dear – that how matters stand.  I am so sorry – I am a nuisance I know but this is only one of the things that we nurses have to put up with.

Please let me know as soon as possible what is happening and whether you can get the week after or not.  I do hope you can.

½ hour later

I have just had to dash over to the ward again.  I suddenly realised that I had walked off duty with the poison cupboard key.  Of course Sister would have wanted to use it and had been phoning all over the hospital for me – that is all except Pay Bed where I was – having come over for coffee with Kit.  Needless to say she was bad tempered when I did get back with the key so I consequently “got it in the neck” for several other things which the junior had done wrong.  Ah me – what a life!!

The church bells have just been ringing – isn’t it grand to hear them again?  It makes me think that may be the end of the war is not so far away.  I wonder how long it is going to hang on?

Mother wrote me yesterday.  Evidently Eric has been on this way home three times and each time something has happened and back to Gibraltar they had to go.

If I do not finish writing soon Kit will be ticking me off for using all her paper.

Bye Darling and I am anxiously waiting for your reply.

My love as always, Grace  xxxxxxx

 

Comments

  1. Roger18 November 2024 at 17:43

    Grace wrote on November 15th “The church bells have just been ringing – isn’t it grand to hear them again? It makes me think that may be the end of the war is not so far away. I wonder how long it is going to hang on?”. Churchill had ordered that bells should be rung to celebrate the Eight Army’s victory at the second battle of El Alamein, after many days of fighting. A few days earlier he had said “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.” The Nottingham Evening Post of Saturday November 14th announced the ringing of bells and gave the names of four churches where they would be rung. Other churches had sent their bells to be melted down for the war effort. The only one listed likely to have been within earshot of the Nottingham General Hospital was All Saints, just over half a mile away. The other churches were St Paul’s Daybrook, St Mary’s Bulwell and St Michael’s (Bramcote).

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  2. Liz Whitehouse18 November 2024 at 17:55

    Thanks, Roger. That information really helps to put the event into context. Readers may not know that during the war, church bells were only to be rung to signal the start of the expected German invasion, so the bells had been silent for several years. This was the reason that official permission had to be given for this special event.

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