The Personal Diary of Nurse De Trafford, 1916-1920

by Brian Crawford (Editor)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $3.25

  Most of us know about the First World War through family anecdotes, history books or accounts written by those who survived its horrors. Here is a more domestic account by someone who, while not 'over there', nevertheless played an important part in the fighting and its pitiable aftermath. Nurse de Trafford's first diary entry is dated 4th August 1916, a month after the Battle of the Somme which signalled the Allies' advance on the Western Front. Those wounded in that bloodbath, and many subsequent ones, were patched up and transported back to 'Blighty' for more expert treatment and the caring hands of dedicated nurses like 'Traffie', who was with a Voluntary Aid Detachment at Moor Park military hospital in Preston, Lancashire. With often heartbreaking honesty, this diary documents the day-to-day activities of the staff and ever-changing patients at Moor Park. It records the humour and despair, the camaraderie and occasional discords, of a close-knit community whose sole aim was to heal. Traffie was a unique witness to the resilience of humankind in the face of seemingly insuperable adversity and this volume brings both her and her charges vividly back to life.