Lt Col Maureen Gara QAIMNS
Gillian Clarke, a member of the Wartime Living History Association in Northern Ireland, is pictured wearing the uniform that belonged to D-Day veteran Lt Col Maureen Gara QAIMNS.
The Wartime Living History Association take part in educational events such as school talks. They also attend public events throughout the year, during these Gillian tells Maureen's story to keep her memory alive and teaches listeners about the D-Day Normandy Landings and the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service.
In 2017 Gillian wore her uniform and visited Normandy and went to the location where the 79th General Hospital was set up. The location was kindly and extensively researched by Ricky Le Quesne.
Please note that the photographs show Gillian wearing the Reserve badge because the QAIMNS badge is rare to buy. Lieutenant Colonel Gara was a member of the QAIMNS(R) during World War Two and became a Regular after WW2.
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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.
For those searching military records, for information on a former nurse of the QAIMNS, QARANC, Royal Red Cross, VAD and other nursing organisations or other military Corps and Regiments, please try Genes Reunited where you can search for ancestors from military records, census, birth, marriages and death certificates as well as over 673 million family trees. At GenesReunited it is free to build your family tree online and is one of the quickest and easiest ways to discover your family history and accessing army service records.
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Another genealogy website which gives you access to military records and allows you to build a family tree is Find My Past which has a free trial.
She was christened Mary Anne but chose Maureen as she disliked her names. She was one of seven children and was born near Carrick in County Donegal on 18th January 1916. Her parents were farmers. Maureen went to a convent school and then trained as a nurse in Manchester before joining the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve in December 1943 where she was posted to the 79th General Hospital in Watford in the St. Agatha orphanage where she learnt military drill, tentage and field nursing care.
She was then posted to Peeble Hydro in Scotland in April 1944 where she learnt chemical warfare and took advantage of the surroundings to learn mountaineering. In preparation for D-Day she was posted to East Anglia in May 1944
br>On the 14th June 1944 she was a nursing officer with the 79th General Hospital where a field hospital had been set up in Bayeux. She was one of many who bravely scrabbled down a net from the troopship and onto a landing craft in rough seas. She then spent her first night in France in a trench with a 24hour ration pack whilst a fierce battle took place outside Caen. At 4pm the next day about 400 casualties arrived.
In September they moved with the Allied Advance into Holland.
After her acceptance to the Regular Army she was posted to India, Singapore and Terendak. She rose to the ranks of Deputy Matron and was then promoted to lieutenant colonel and served at the QARANC Training Centre as the chief instructor.
She was awarded the Royal Red Cross Medal in 1969 and then became the Matron of the Queen Alexandra's Military Hospital Millbank in London.
She retired in 1971to Aldershot and became involved with the QA Association.
A stamp in her honour was printed in 2004, commemorating the 60th anniversary of D-Day, of St Vincent and the Grenadines.
She died aged 93 years on 19th October.
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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This website is not affiliated or endorsed by The Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC) or the Ministry of Defence.
