Pearls before Poppies

by Rachel Trethewey

  Within days the casino was transformed into a military hospital. Shelagh gave £1,000 to start the hospital and then guaranteed £400 a month to keep it running. Her husband sent her a £500 donation ‘for old times’ sake’, but when she wrote him a thank-you letter hinting at the possibility of a reconciliation he did not reply.23

  However, the duchess did not have time to dwell on personal disappointments. The next three days were spent unpacking instruments, dressings, tables, linen and crockery that had been brought over from England. In the gaming rooms, beneath the ornate ceilings and crystal chandeliers swathed in linen covers, rows of beds were lined up awaiting the first casualties. The salles privées were transformed into an operating theatre, and a pathological laboratory and an X-ray room were set up on the ground floor.

  Now all the hospital needed was patients. Boulogne was crowded with British wounded, and injured soldiers were lying at the station waiting to be taken to England. But at Le Touquet the medical team waited for patients in vain for several days. On 4 November, the commandant, Major Douglas, went to Boulogne and returned with the promise that a hospital train would arrive later that day.

  At about 7.45 p.m. in the evening the first cases arrived by ambulance car from Étaples Station. Then the cars kept coming, returning to collect more men, until by 1 a.m. there were about 200 patients. Many of the injured had been travelling all day, they looked exhausted and their wounds badly needed redressing. From now on there would be little respite for the duchess and her medical staff. The next morning they were up at 8 a.m. to care for their patients.24

  The duchess became a familiar figure on the wards accompanied by her Irish wolfhound. One patient wrote to his fiancée about being visited by the duchess who ‘promised to bring a big dog she is awfully proud of’ the next time she visited.25 One of the hospital’s nurses, Lynette Powell, described the duchess at this time as looking beautiful in her uniform, which always included a very dainty cap. A professional nurse herself, Lynette found Shelagh and her friends were useful because they could do the jobs the trained nurses did not have time for; they read to the men, wrote letters for them and kept them entertained. They also did the administration and clerical work and saw to the medical supplies, linen and food.

  Shelagh and her friends also provided glamour. The duchess thought that one of the best things that they could do was to raise the morale of the soldiers. When the convoys of casualties came in, the nurses all rushed to attend to their medical needs while the duchess and her team took down their details on slips of paper. They always dressed themselves up to greet their patients. ‘It’s the least we can do to cheer up the men,’ the duchess used to say. Whenever they got word that a convoy was coming in, even if it was early in the morning, they changed into full evening dress with diamond tiaras. Dressed for a ball, they would stand at the entrance to the hospital and take the names of the men. Adding to the party atmosphere, they played uplifting music on the gramophone. The contrast between the elegant ladies and the muddy men lying on stretchers was a surreal sight, but it did what the duchess had intended and cheered up the men. Lynette recalled one soldier saying, ‘We thought we were going to Hell and now it seems we are in Heaven!’26

  Beneath the superficial frivolity the duchess took her role seriously and was deeply affected by the patients she saw. Finding the cases of tetanus were the worst to watch, she gave the patients a little chloroform each time an attack came on to ease their pain. She particularly admired the cheery and amusing young boys who came in. She told her mother about two Irish lads who both had their rights arms off and ‘did nothing but chaff each other and ask for the loan of each other’s arms’.27

  Shelagh went back to England for Christmas, but she found it a difficult experience. Her two daughters, Ursula and Mary, stayed with their father at Eaton Hall so Shelagh spent the holiday with her parents. During the war years, Shelagh rarely saw her daughters. They stayed with their grandparents and were raised by governesses because for both the duke and duchess their war work came first. They let the day pass without celebration, and separated from her children the duchess wanted to be very quiet.28 It was a relief to return to her work at the beginning of January.

  However, even in France Shelagh could not totally escape her mother’s unhelpful interference. Patsy used to send her six rashers of bacon for her breakfast, and on the outside of the package she had written, ‘If anyone opens this and won’t let my poor little girl have it, I hope it will make them very, very sick.’29

  Many of the women who were involved in the Red Cross Pearl Appeal ran hospitals. Like the Duchess of Westminster, Lady Sarah Wilson set up a hospital in France in 1914. By October, the chief surgeon and thirty-three nurses were on their way to join her at Étaples. Wanting her patients to have the best of everything, Lady Sarah had arranged for Harrods not only to equip the hospital but also to do the catering. Lady Sarah’s friend, Alice Keppel, who was also a leading member of the Red Cross Pearl Appeal, joined her and helped with secretarial work. One of Lady Sarah’s patients told a journalist that it was ‘the jolliest place to be ill in’. Favourite ragtimes were played on the gramophone and Lady Sarah herself was ‘a veritable tonic’ as she was always so bright and cheery.30

  From 1915, some of the smartest addresses in London and grandest stately homes in the country were turned into convalescent hospitals. As many of the Duchess of Rutland’s friends were setting up hospitals in France she decided that she would like to do the same, but at the last minute the Red Cross refused to sanction the unit. Disappointed, she decided to turn her Arlington Street home into an officers’ hospital. At first the duke resisted as he feared his house would be knocked about, so the duchess turned to his ex-mistress, Maxine Elliott, and asked her to persuade him. A compromise was reached in which only half the house was converted into a hospital; the duke’s part would be reserved for his use only. Violet reassured her husband that this was not a purely philanthropic move, it was to prevent their daughter, Diana, from becoming a nurse in France.31

  Diana had been scheming to become a nurse since the start of the war and had written to the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Dudley and the Duchess of Westminster in the hope of joining them. She had also contacted Maxine about helping on her barge in Belgium. However, using similar emotional blackmail to the pressure she exerted on her son, John, the Duchess of Rutland had prevented Diana from going to the Front. When bursting into tears and saying the anxiety would kill her did not work, Violet persuaded her friend Lady Dudley to give Diana a lecture on how wounded soldiers might rape the nurses who looked after them.

  Diana thought this argument was ridiculous, but she was unable to go against her mother’s wishes and instead trained as a nurse at Guy’s Hospital in London. Violet resented even this compromise because it threatened her authority over her daughter. Although the work at Guy’s was gruelling, for the first time in her life Diana felt free, until then she had never been allowed out on her own on foot and her every move had been known by her mother. Diana’s newfound liberty did not please Violet, so she plotted to curtail it. By establishing her own hospital, her daughter would once more be under her domination.32

  At Arlington Street, the golden drawing room became a ward for ten patients, while the ballroom held another ten men. The walls were hung with glazed linen, the floors covered with linoleum and the duchess’ bedroom was equipped as an operating theatre. After Diana’s training in the more professional, spartan environment of Guy’s Hospital, she felt that her mother’s hospital ‘seemed soft and demoralising’.33 When the hospital opened there was no discipline for the nurses. Instead of the unflattering, utilitarian uniform she had worn at Guy’s, Diana was now dressed in a flattering red uniform with a big organdie Red Cross headpiece. Chestnut-cream cakes from a top patisserie and sherry were provided for elevenses and there were plenty of boltholes with telephones from which Diana could keep in hourly contact with her friends.

  The Duchess of Rutland was not the
only one to put her own personal stamp on her hospital. Using the skills they had honed as society hostesses, the women running hospitals tried to make their patients as comfortable as possible. From 1915, Lady Northcliffe ran a twenty-bed hospital for officers at 14 Grosvenor Crescent, Belgravia. A journalist from the Pall Mall Gazette, who visited the hospital, wrote, ‘The wards have been decorated with unerring good taste under Lady Northcliffe’s personal direction, the furniture having been obtained from one of Lord Northcliffe’s country houses.’ A large bowl of flowers was placed beside each bed and a comfortable day room was created for the officers. The journalist described Lady Northcliffe, ‘In the most becoming of white nursing outfits [she] moves about like the presiding angel of the house with a smile on her lips and a cheerful word for all’.34 She was as much at home in the little white marble operating theatre as in the cosy, fire-lit apartment where the nurses rested.

  Patients appreciated Lady Northcliffe’s efforts. Major Wingrove, who had been wounded in the leg at Neuve-Église in April 1918 and had lost part of his right calf to gangrene, was sent to her hospital. He wrote, ‘I am now recovering rapidly in one of the best hospitals in London. Everything possible is done for us and no expense spared. Lady Northcliffe is a charming hostess and comes round to see us almost every day.’35

  The rush to offer their houses for use as hospitals, charity headquarters and convalescent homes was so overwhelming in the early months of 1915 that in May the War Office was forced to announce that no further offers of private houses were needed. The numbers of women volunteering to become nurses in the VAD was also overwhelming. From 9,000 members in August 1914, the organisation had grown to 23,000 nurses and 18,000 hospital orderlies by 1918, with many VADs serving in France, Gallipoli and Mesopotamia.36

  Like Lady Diana Manners, many of the young women who helped in the hospitals found the experience liberating. There was a reality to the work which was often lacking in their pampered pre-war existence. Cynthia Asquith wrote in her diary about her time in a hospital:

  I have loved it, to an extent that puzzles me. I quite understand one’s liking for the human interest side of it and the absorbing, feverish desire to satisfy the Sister and please the men, but I rather wonder why one enjoys the sink tray, Lysol, bustle side of it quite so much.37

  Analysing her emotions further, Cynthia wrote, ‘I think one reason that makes me like it is my entire lack of shyness with the men. It is the only human relationship in which I haven’t been bothered by self-consciousness.’38 Away from the stilted conventions of society, where strict etiquette and chaperones kept the sexes apart, young women like Cynthia at last felt able to be themselves. They related naturally to men as fellow human beings rather than potential suitors. For the first time, these girls had a genuine purpose which went beyond their previous restricted roles as lovers, wives or mothers.

  The press picked up on the idea that these women gained at least as much from their work as the men they cared for. Journalists satirised society ladies who were falling over themselves to nurse the wounded. A cartoon in The Sketch portrayed a Tommy bandaged like an Egyptian mummy complaining to an orderly as a smiling lady prepared to treat him, ‘Lummy ’er Ladyship again? Look ’ere George! Be a sport. Go tell ’er I’m too bloomin’ ill to be nussed today.’39

  There was some scepticism about whether untrained aristocrats were the right people to run hospitals. The politician Lord Crawford thought women like Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, and the Duchess of Westminster were particularly troublesome. According to him, they overspent and then expected the Red Cross to extricate them. They shamelessly exploited their contacts and they were so eager to keep their hospitals filled that they became known as ‘body snatchers’ for carrying off invalids ‘willy-nilly’. Apparently, one of the ladies employed an ‘admirable’ ambulance driver who would wait at a railway siding and then whip a wounded man out of the train while the orderlies were not looking. Lord Crawford hoped that the Red Cross would veto any more expeditions by these ‘adventuresses’.40

  However, despite the mockery, most of these women did a good job, they conscientiously cared for the sick and provided the funds that kept the hospitals going. They were not just ‘lady bountifuls’ playing at nursing. As one officer told a journalist, the Duchess of Westminster was ‘a little brick a dead hard worker a sport very unassuming always there when you want her – the best of the bunch’.41 Her hospital gained the reputation for being one of the best in France. The Sketch described it as ‘quite the perfection of a ward’. They added, ‘The surgeons say that it is astonishing how quickly wounds heal and bones set in the quietude and the splendid atmosphere of the forest by the sea.’42

  Although they were dealing with dreadful mental and physical wounds, the duchess and her nurses made a great effort to raise their patients’ spirits. According to The Sketch, ‘All the ladies are expert masseuses.’43 Often the sound of a piano could be heard, accompanied by a cheerful singing voice. One of the best-loved nurses was 33-year-old Martha Frost from Yorkshire. Always kind and optimistic, she would sing at the top of her voice while encouraging the patients to join her in a singalong. One solider wrote, ‘Here’s to jolly Martha, who is all cheerfulness and brightness itself, with such splendid care, how can any patient help but be affected by her charming personality?’

  There was humour and laughter as well as sorrow on the wards. In a ‘ditty’ a patient wrote, ‘Martha we love you, dear old thing. If you can’t do much else, you surely can sing.’ Recreating the teasing banter between nurses and patients, another soldier penned a poem, ‘A cheeky old thing by name, Martha, when dealing with wounds was a “strafer”, she’d just pull, tear and rip; at the pads round my hip; but by Jove a good sort she’s not half a […] Potter!’ Showing how the men courageously made light of their life-changing wounds, in Martha’s autograph book one of her patients signed himself, ‘Deepest love and best gratitude from the one-legged rabbit’.44

  Lasting friendships were made on the wards of the Duchess of Westminster’s Hospital. Social class became irrelevant as professional nurses like Martha, who had nursed in Yorkshire before the war, worked side by side with girls from the aristocracy and landed gentry. Martha became great friends with Lady Alba Painter and after the war she used to visit her at her stately home. Whenever Lady Painter’s children were ill, Martha was asked to nurse them. Although Martha never married or had children of her own, her niece was named Alba to mark the special relationship.45

  While some of the medical staff changed over the years, the Duchess of Westminster was a constant reassuring presence. Proving she was no longer the restless socialite of the pre-war years, she showed lasting commitment to her hospital and worked there throughout the war. In the spring and early summer of 1918 the pressure on all the hospitals in France was reaching a peak. At the Duchess of Westminster’s Hospital the number of beds had increased from 160 at the start of the war to 250. Red Cross reports show that for the four weeks ending 18 May 1918, the hospital had treated 634 patients, 201 operations had taken place and 125 X-ray examinations had been done.46

  The unrelenting workload continued following the Battle on the Aisne on 27 May. As thousands of German guns shelled the French from north-east of Paris, the earth shook and an inferno raged. Within a few days the Germans had advanced about 40 miles to reach the Marne. However, the Germans faced stiff resistance from the French who were reinforced by American troops.47 Giving the Allies hope for the future, the Americans acquitted themselves well in their first major action of the war at Château Thierry and Belleau Wood.48

  Amidst the growing pressure on her hospital, the duchess remained calm and collected; her grace under strain was widely admired. Later that year, Shelagh was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her service in the war. Through her work, the duchess found the fulfilment which had been lacking in her previous life.

  While developing her new identity she also found new love. One of her patients was
a dark-haired, slightly built, 25-year-old airman called Captain James Fitzpatrick Lewis. A keen sportsman, before the war he had lived at Woking and worked at Lloyds Underwriters. When the war broke out he gained a commission in the Royal Flying Corps.

  Early in the war the RFC had set up an aerodrome at Le Touquet near the duchess’ hospital. As the fatalities at East Boldre training school highlighted, military flight was very dangerous. Once trained and in France it became even more perilous and, as Captain Lewis ‘conceded nothing in daring’, inevitably he was injured.49 After his accident he was sent to the duchess’ hospital.

  Although James was twelve years Shelagh’s junior, when they saw each other it was love at first sight. A newspaper reported, ‘From their earliest acquaintance an attachment sprang up between them.’50 As the duchess was still married, they tried to keep their romance secret but there was gossip. However, the couple were undeterred by what other people thought. When Shelagh was spotted at a performance of Seraglio at Drury Lane in summer 1918 she was looking radiant. The columnist noted, ‘The Duchess of Westminster always seems to be resplendent in diamonds these days whenever I see her. She was a vision of jewels and lace.’51 When James was demobilised, the duchess appointed him as her private secretary so that he could be constantly with her.

  After the war ended, in 1919 the duchess divorced the duke on grounds of his adultery and desertion. The decree was made absolute on 19 December and just a few weeks later on 14 January 1920 Shelagh secretly married James. Unlike her first wedding, the couple had an unostentatious register office ceremony at Lyndhurst in Hampshire with just Shelagh’s maid as a witness. After the wedding, Wing Commander and Mrs Lewis left to start a new life in the South of France.

  For the former duchess, giving away one of her pearls to the Red Cross had been a symbol of her liberation from a life which had offered her everything money could buy, except happiness.