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 103rd General Hospital Part Two Interviewee: Patricia Robinson, born 1923 Interviewer: Frank Heimans, Date of Interview: 4 March 2009 Transcription: Glenys Murray, March 2009 |
Who was Peggy Haggett?
Peg was my dear friend and we’re still friends today. Peg’s a little older than I am but we meet every two months and we still go to our meetings. They’re not very many of us. We went into Legacy House last Wednesday and there were only sixteen of us there. We do this every two months.
So you’re becoming members of a rather exclusive club?
Yes we are very exclusive, there’s not very many and a lot of them can’t walk. A lot of friends that I still have some of them have Alzheimer’s and are in nursing homes because they can’t look after themselves.
There must have been a great spirit among you all?
It was a wonderful life you got out of it what you put into it.
What were the rules of behaviour for the VAD’s?
We had rules. We weren’t supposed to flirt with the fellas or talk to anybody about anything in the medical side of things. You never talked to one patient about the other. There were rules like that. You weren’t supposed to get male visitors. I can remember once I had a call, I was in our hut and I had a call to say I had a visitor. My brother was there and I thought “oh my goodness what’s Bob doing here”? I thought “he’s only about sixteen how in the heck did he get here”? When I got over to the gate here’s my sister’s brother-in-law standing there waiting to see me. As he was in Parramatta he came out to Baulkham Hills to see me. I could only talk to Bill, his name was Bill Clout from Tumut, and I was allowed to talk to him for about an hour. Took him down into our rec. room as we called it where we could sit down and talk but other than that you did not have a lot of visitors.
I know that you couldn’t fraternise with the men but you did marry one of them didn’t you?
Yes I met my husband there, he was a patient there. He had hurt his leg up on Thursday Island and his knee never got better. That’s how I met him. I never worked in his ward I was working in Ward One I was there for quite a long time. They used to send some of the patients down to assist us when we would get very busy. At the afternoon tea things weren’t washed up they’d get someone down to wash them up and keep the kitchenette tidy. We didn’t have time for that and that’s how I met my husband. I’ve been married now for sixty three years.
Wow that’s a record isn’t it?
Three children.
That’s wonderful. So he was a patient at the hospital?
Yes he was a patient there yes.
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Can you describe your typical day at the hospital as a VAD? What would you do from the moment you woke up to when you went to bed?
Well we were woken up by reveille every morning at six o’clock. You’d fly out of bed. It wasn’t so bad in summer time because you could run out in your jamas. We had to line up in our lines outside the rec. hut and they would tick us off. That’s how they kept track of us all. After we had done that you would go back and make your bed and have your shower and get dressed. Then you would have your breakfast. Then you would go to your ward to start the day. We started at eight o’clock in the morning on the days and it would have been until sometimes it would have been until six o’clock at night. We would get a lunch break you’d go and get your lunch. Probably an hour for that you’d come back to your own mess to have your lunch. Then you’d have a little bit of time if you were quick you could have a quick shower or something like that. But then you went back to work in the ward and you would probably work there until about six o’clock. They were very, very long days there. The evenings if you were rostered onto the night shift that was the very, very hard one. You were on duty from seven o’clock at night until seven o’clock in the morning.
So they were all twelve hour shifts?
They were all twelve hour shifts and we were very fortunate we got four and six a day (four shillings and six pence) for all of that.
Really, so any work you were doing it would be taking blood samples that sort of thing?
No it all depends on which ward you were in. Ordinary you’d just be doing beds to be made, changed and the patients made sure that they had a shower. You had to go around and keep the ward tidy.
Did that include making the beds?
That included making the beds. Any bed patients had to have all their facilities they needed for their washing. Taking them the bowls and the towels and putting the screens around them. We had to put the screens around them because they didn’t have curtains in those days. The people needed privacy and we tried to give them what they required.
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What sort of a uniform did you wear?
We started out with our blue uniforms that we all wore. A lovely blue cotton that we had with our pocket on the left breast with our red cross and our white veils with our red cross. Then after they couldn’t get all the blues done for every place we went into khaki frocks. Button through frocks with long sleeves all in a khaki colour that was it but we still had the same veil and the same shoes.
Did you have a different uniform for winter and summer?
Yes only for outdoor our uniform we had two skirts and a jacket for the winter, long sleeve shirts, ties and for the summer time we had shirtmaker dresses.
You mentioned that you slept in tents?
When I first went to Baulkham Hills to the 103 I should say. I couldn’t believe it when I saw all these marquee tents in a row. I’d slept on verandahs but never in a tent or on a camp stretcher but there we were for nine months I think. Six of us per tent it wouldn’t be too bad in the summertime because you could push the sides back and you got all the air in. There wasn’t much privacy about it but you could let the air in. The winter time used to be terrible if it rained you’d get up and you’d hear the tent creak. We have to get out of bed and go around and loosen the guy ropes. As soon as it all dried down after the wet days or the dampness in the night the next day you’d have to go around and tighten them up again. That was tent life. But it was a lot of fun in a way. We made the fun. None of us had any money, none of us had any money and we just made our own fun. We used to get on the bus out at Baulkham Hills out at the main gate and we’d go into Parramatta. Sometimes it might have been three times a week and go to the dances. Parramatta Town Hall, wonderful old days.
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Tell me about that every weekend or not?
No you never were off every weekend you were rostered on some weekends.
So you’d have Saturday night when you did go to the dance?
When you finished on a Saturday you’d finish about three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. Then you would come back up have a shower and change and the bus would probably take you into Parramatta say at five o’clock then you’d get the train to wherever you were going.
Was there a time when Cinderella had to be back?
Yes we had to be back by twelve o’clock each night. This Cinderella went to sleep one night on the train. I was on the wrong train I was in a hurry I didn’t look correctly and when I saw Liverpool I thought “hello it goes to Granville” this is country, I had no idea there was another line that went to Liverpool. I had no idea and I got on this train and when it had left Lidcombe Station. This was probably the eleven o’clock train from the city and when it left the station and it branched out and went out to Berala I wondered where in the heck I was I’d never been there. I had to get off the train. I think I got off the train at Regent’s Park and I had to wait there for so long for a train to take me back to Lidcombe to connect up to the next train to go to Parramatta which took an awful long time.
When I got back to Parramatta Station the bus had gone which I realised before I even got there. I didn’t even have enough money for a taxi and all the buses had gone. An army bus used to come and pick us up. All the ordinary buses that ran around the Baulkham Hills area they had all stopped because they didn’t go all night. I thought “heck how in the hell am I going to get back there”? So I started to walk and I walked out and when I got out around Parramatta gaol area I thought “I can’t walk any longer”. A chap picked me up in a truck, nice man, and he took me out as far as Junction Road. I think it was one of the back ways and you cut through the Sister’s quarters which made it a lot closer to our tents. I think it might have been about a quarter to one in the morning when I got back. I never missed it ever again I had a real lesson that night.
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It must have been very, very cold in the winter sleeping in tents?
It was. I think we were young and silly and we didn’t notice a lot of the cold.
Where did you have breakfast? Where was that served?
That was always served in our mess.
Which building was that?
We had a recreation mess and half of it was recreation. As I said we could relax and sit round we had a few shelves of books there and then the mess was next door to that. It was all one big long building.
So there was a reconstructed building wasn’t one of the original?
No it was a reconstruction.
Now you transferred to Ward One late in 1943 why was that?
Well some people were a little bit hard to get on with. Some of the Sisters were a little bit fussy because they hated people to come in and they had to tell them day after day what they wanted doing. I had worked in Ward One with this Sister, Sister Macleod(?) her name was and we got on rather well and eventually I’m sure it was her got me moved there. I stayed there till the day I came out I was always in Ward One.
You transferred to the AIF Section when you turned twenty one?
I was twenty one in the October and I joined the AIF (Australian Imperial Force) because I thought I might be lucky enough to go away somewhere.
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Some of the other people had been sent overseas. Some of them went to New Guinea and some went to Japan that was in the later part though. Some were on the boats. You had to belong to the AIF Section so I had joined the AIF Section I think it was about the January. It took a while to get through. I did that with the option that I could get a move somewhere but I wasn’t lucky.
So you continued at the hospital?
I was at Baulkham Hills for the duration.
Did it make any difference having joined the AIF Section was the work the same?
The work was the same it did nothing. No extra money or anything.
Who were the officers in charge do you remember any names at the hospital?
I can remember Colonel Graham. Colonel Graham was the one who was in charge of the hospital and we had a Major Stenning he was an orthopaedic surgeon I can remember him There was a Staff Sergeant there he was something to do with the medical and his name was Kennedy but I don’t remember anybody else. We didn’t have a real lot of doctors stationed out there. They’d probably bring them over for relief work, the duty in that section.
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How many qualified nursing sisters would there have been?
There was quite a big staff of nursing sisters there. There probably would have been about fifty or sixty. As I say at different times the doctors would come in for relief.
I couldn’t tell you exactly how many there probably would have been about four or five there permanent. Their quarters were the housing that wasn’t very big which is situated, probably still there today, down near the swimming pool. That’s where the male officers were situated.
You spoke a bit about entertainment I believe there was a singer Gracie Fields that used to sing that came once to visit the hospital. Were you there at that time?
No I wasn’t there in Gracie Field’s day no, no. But they used to have concert groups and movies nights now and again. You could go to the movies not very often but you had it. Concert groups would come in to entertain and mainly for the patients. The male patients wore navy trousers and a white shirt and a red tie for identification. The male patients were not supposed to drink they weren’t supposed to go to the Bull n Bush pub up on the corner of the highway. My goodness they were there and everybody recognised them because that’s what they wore.
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There was at one time a bushfire threat to the hospital do you recall that?
No I don’t recall anything about a bushfire in my time.
Have you ever returned to the hospital after the war?
Yes I’ve been out there once.
Tell me how did you find it?
I was very upset when I saw it in the dilapidated state it was in. I couldn’t believe it the only thing that was recognisable for us that was there is, outside the centre that was our administration, is the flagpole and there is a plaque at the base of the hospital to say it was the 103rd AGH.
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That’s all?
Yes I think that’s the only thing and on the third cottage up on the door out onto the verandah there was a three written in the brickwork. That was still there and I have a photograph of myself taken near that and that was still there. Somebody put it there in paintwork just ordinary paint, blue paint it was.
So what’s the best thing that happened to you at your time at the hospital do you think?
Oh I suppose I met my husband I could say the “love of my life” so to speak. It was a wonderful life everybody did something for somebody else. There was nothing selfish about it. We learnt when we went there what our jobs were and we stayed with it. Some nights we would have to go to medical classes where there’d be a doctor in. He’d be checking you and he’d flip you a little bone and ask you what this is. You wouldn’t have any idea what it was I didn’t anyway. You had little things like that would happen now and again. They used to check up on us to make sure that we knew what we were doing. As far as giving injections, really dressing the patients dressings no we did not do that. We could be there to assist the Sister and remove the bandages but they were the fully qualified ones and that’s what they were there for.
Now I’ve asked you what the best thing was that happened to you, what was the worst thing that happened to you at the hospital?
Nothing much it was my own silliness. I think the night I had to walk home.
That’s not so bad?
No there was nothing unpleasant there was nothing vicious about it.
So what did you most enjoy about being there?
Doing what I enjoyed doing, doing something to help somebody else.
What do think is the most important thing that you’ve learnt from your experiences at the hospital?
Some of it has been trust in other people. In those days it was all trust. I think it made me a better person growing up - more understanding not so selfish.
What sort of recognition do you think you’ve received for your war efforts?
We didn’t receive any recognition we're no even entitled to free medicine. Yet they promised the earth. “We will do this for you when you come in, you’ll be well looked after when you came out”. We were not even entitled to a gold card because we did not leave Australia. If you served overseas yes you got it but nobody knew where they were going to go to or what they were. We enlisted to help but they’ve taken everything from us. Even when people die today the people that served overseas get their plaques put on their headstone or their ashes. We are not entitled to anything. Oh we all got our service medal I’ve got two medals in there. One for Australia and my service medal we all got issued with those. The majority of us anyway some just got the one. If you had to go overseas you got the Pacific Star if you’d left Australian waters. We didn’t.
I think you played your part?
We did our part what we could. I mean to say it was nearly two years of the better part of my life in a way. But I had no idea what was before me none of us do I don’t think.
So in retrospect how do you look back on your years as a VAD?
I’ve been very, very happy with the friendships I made. I’ve got a lot of friends. Not a lot from Baulkham Hills there are about seven of us that really are close together. We still meet. On ANZAC Day we all go to town and we march if we can and then we have lunch together. Then once a year generally in September we have what we call a reunion luncheon. There might be forty or fifty of us there.