Life After War
The transition from war to civilian life is never easy and frontline nurses needed to adapt. Here we tell the story of QA Nursing Sister Kate Luard who nursed in France and Belgium during the worst of the fighting in World War One.
Kate Luard left France on 28 November 1918, resigning from the nursing service so that she could return home to look after her ailing father. Following his death on 28 January 1919, she resumed her role as Matron of the Berks & Bucks County Sanatorium but was clearly restless. Her age, she was by now almost 50, was making it difficult for her to secure a senior hospital position. She was then appointed to the South London Hospital for Women.
Her last position as a nurse was as Lady Matron at Bradfield College in Berkshire which is pictured in the photo below.
Extracts from the Bradfield College obituary and letter from an Old Boy:
At Bradfield she inspired complete confidence in masters and parents alike, though would- be malingerers received short shift, but the genuine patient received every sympathy and learned too the full benefit of her great experience and skill. To be brought to her shocked after some accident was to know all the reassurance given by devotion, gentleness and efficiency.
Gradually her back became more troublesome and she retired in December 1930. She then returned to Essex sharing a home "Abbotts" in Wickham Bishops with her two sisters G (Georgina) and Rose.
She continued to travel whenever she could and never without her sketchbook. With her brother Percy she toured the battlefields on the Western and Eastern Fronts. With the Canon of St Albans, she set up nursing homes for returning troops.
Amongst other activities she was on the committees of both the Anti-Gas Demonstrations 1936 and the Witham Air Raid Precautions 1938.
Air Raid Precaution A.R.P. information WW2
Her back problems caused more health problems and she had to abandon local activities and the garden which was her joy. She retired from being Commandant of the Essex 24 Women's Detachment (Witham and Kelvedon) of the British Red Cross Society in 1940 and was made a life vice-president of the BRCS.
In time she became increasingly incapacitated and finally bedridden. To the end she retained a close interest in Bradfield, and nothing gave her more pleasure than a letter or visit from someone connected with the school. She also enjoyed the visits and support of her surviving siblings and her nieces, nephews and friends.
She died, aged 90, on 16 August 1962. Her grave and headstone are in St Bartholomew's churchyard, Wickham Bishops, alongside those of her sisters G and Rose.
A local historian noted:
… and there lies KEL, a remarkable person, quietly resting in a country churchyard with some of her siblings, with no great pomp. Quintessentially English to my way of thinking.
Read more about her in the book Unknown Warriors The Letters of Kate Luard RRC and Bar.
Follow her First World War path from the page Field Ambulance No.4 and at The Battle of Arras 1917.
Read more about Kate and extracts from her diaries at www.kateluard.co.uk
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My PTSD assistance dog, Lynne, and I have written a book about how she helps me with my military Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety, and depression. I talk about my time in the QAs and the coping strategies I now use to be in my best health.
Along the way, I have had help from various military charities, such as Help for Heroes and The Not Forgotten Association and royalties from this book will go to them and other charities like Bravehound, who paired me with my four-legged best friend.
I talk openly about the death of my son by suicide and the help I got from psychotherapy and counselling and grief charities like The Compassionate Friends.
The author, Damien Lewis, said of Lynne:
"A powerful account of what one dog means to one man on his road to recovery. Both heart-warming and life-affirming. Bravo Chris and Lynne. Bravo Bravehound."
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This beautiful QARANC Poppy Pin Badge is available from the Royal British Legion Poppy Shop.
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Former Royal Air Force Regiment Gunner Jason Harper witnesses a foreign jet fly over his Aberdeenshire home. It is spilling a strange yellow smoke. Minutes later, his wife, Pippa, telephones him, shouting that she needs him. They then get cut off. He sets straight out, unprepared for the nightmare that unfolds during his journey. Everyone seems to want to kill him.
Along the way, he pairs up with fellow survivor Imogen. But she enjoys killing the living dead far too much. Will she kill Jason in her blood thirst? Or will she hinder his journey through this zombie filled dystopian landscape to find his pregnant wife?
The Fence is the first in this series of post-apocalyptic military survival thrillers from the torturous mind of former British army nurse, now horror and science fiction novel writer, C.G. Buswell.
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The death of the Brotherhood will be avenged.
RAF gunner Jason Harper and a team of Special Air Service operators are enraged after the death of their brothers by a terrorist drone strike. They fly into south-eastern Yemen on a Black-op mission to gather intelligence and avenge the death of their comrades.
Can they infiltrate the Al-Queda insurgents' camp, stay undetected, and call down their own drone missile strike and get home safely?
Will they all survive to fight another day?
Operation Wrath is a free, fast-paced adventure prequel to the non-stop action The Fence series by military veteran author C.G. Buswell.
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