Wartime Christmas memories
Stanley A Holland spent Christmas with the Friends Ambulance Unit dring Word War Two. Here he shares his experience with us.
In Bournville Meeting at Christmas time last year, a Friend was moved to speak about an unusual event in which he had been involved many years ago. It was not normally part of his duties to act as a courier for the government, but on one occasion he was asked to deliver an important package to a far-away country in the East. An RAF flight not being available, arrangements were made for him to travel on an American plane that was due to pass over the North Pole. Accordingly, on Christmas Day, he and the other passengers found themselves over the North Pole. There happened to be a Padre on board, and a brief service was held – something that surely has to be regarded as unusual. One can imagine that it must have been very moving.
Later in that Meeting, another Friend spoke about an experience she had during her career as a nurse. On one occasion she was working in hospital over the Christmas period, and joined with other staff as they did their best to bring the spirit of Christmas into the wards. They put up decorations, and went round the dimmed wards wearing their colourful cloaks and carrying lanterns while they sang a medley of familiar carols. In this way, they helped to make the patients feel at home and reminded them of the Christmas message.
As I thought about this afterwards, I was reminded of a similar experience that I had when undergoing hospital training before going overseas with the Friends’ Ambulance Unit (FAU). We went one better, however, by taking a short sketch round the wards – acted by me and a very clever and attractive young nurse, who had somehow neglected to learn her lines. This made the performance much funnier as I had to keep prompting her and playfully reproaching her for not doing her homework. A group of us also wrote and staged a pantomime that we put on in the outpatients’ department. It was all a lot of fun, but I never lost sight of our major objective, which was to do our best to alleviate the suffering caused by the war. Some Friends felt that FAU work would take us too close to the military, but I had decided that I was prepared to share the risks the forces ran if this would enable me to carry out the humanitarian work for which I had been trained. My brother, two years older than me, was already in the FAU, helping in a mobile hospital during the desert campaign. At least one of his colleagues lost his life.
A major change in my life had taken place in October – I married a charming young woman named Rosemary who was in the Women’s Royal Naval Service. She was a good church-going girl, who came from the same kind of family as mine, and we had quickly decided that we had a lot in common so we got married on 21 October in St Andrews Church in Cairo and had a short honeymoon at a hotel within walking distance of the Pyramids at Giza.
With Christmas looming up, we felt that it would be nice if we could spend some time together, so I managed to get leave and we booked into a small hotel, Daly’s, in Alexandria that the FAU often used. I got to Alex in time to join Rosemary in the choir of the Anglican Cathedral, the first of a number of choirs in which we sang together.
On Christmas Day, somewhat to my surprise, I found myself invited to join the Wrens for lunch (very nearly the only male among about two dozen young women). And certainly the only conchie. Some of the girls didn’t approve of Rosemary marrying a CO, but the FAU was generally accepted because we were in khaki and were wearing Red Cross/FAU epaulettes. We were doing our bit to help suffering humanity, and not shirking the dangers. As Friends will know, seventeen FAU members (sixteen men and one woman) did not make it back home. Some of my FAU friends jocularly referred to her as my ‘War-like Woman’. I think that some were secretly envious, and as for her being ‘war-like’, it would be difficult to find a more peace-loving person. She was completely out of place in the forces, but like many did what had to be done.
I had anticipated that at some point during the proceedings in the Wrenery on Christmas Day, toasts would be drunk, and this duly happened. Being a life-long teetotaller, I had discreetly kept a glass of water by me. It was a novel experience being asked to drink what is referred to, I believe, as the ‘Loyal Toast’. This consisted of drinking the health of the King, and I had no difficulty with this at all. He seemed a likeable man and had not wanted the job in the first place, but he was doing what duty required of him (unlike his brother Edward) and, to the extent that I could judge, was doing it very well.
In due course, the war ended, and I went back to my job with Birmingham Corporation, and we adjusted ourselves to our new life together. In due course we were blessed with three children and four grandchildren. Rosemary joined the Society of Friends many years ago and played a very active role in the Society’s affairs. We have had many happy Christmases together over the last sixty-five years.
Stanley also writes: My dear Rosemary had her eighty-seventh birthday on 1 December. I shall be eighty-eight on 14 February.
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