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Voluntary Aid Detachment
The Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) was a voluntary unit of civilians providing nursing care for military personnel in the United Kingdom and various other countries in the British Empire. The most important periods of operation for these units were during World War I and World War II. Although VADs were intimately bound up in the war effort, they were not military nurses, as they were not under the control of the military, unlike the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, the Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service, and the Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service. The VAD nurses worked in field hospitals, i.e., close to the battlefield, and in longer-term places of recuperation back in Britain. World War I The VAD system was founded in 1909 with the help of the British Red Cross and Order of St John. By the summer of 1914 there were over 2,500 Voluntary Aid Detachments in Britain. Of the 74,000 VAD members in 1914, two-thirds were women and girls. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence Daisy Batty, Item 5
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico anno 2013, datISTAT/ref> Florence was a centre of Middle Ages, medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful House of Medici, Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy (established in 1861). The Florentine dialect forms the base of Italian language, Stan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Effort
In politics and military planning, a war effort is a coordinated mobilization of society's resources—both industrial and human—towards the support of a military force. Depending on the militarization of the culture, the relative size of the armed forces and the society supporting them, the style of government, and the famous support for the military objectives, such war effort can range from a small industry to complete command of society. Although many societies were retroactively perceived to be engaged in a war effort, the concept was not generally used until the last decade of the 18th century, when the leaders of the French Revolution called for the ''levée en masse'' and a general mobilization of society to prevent monarchist forces from reclaiming control of the French government. The concept was subsequently adapted and used by Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, especially during World War I and World War II. The term ''war effort'' was co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edith Cliff
Edith Cliff, OBE, (1871–1962) was the Commandant of Gledhow Hall Military Hospital in Gledhow, Leeds, Yorkshire, England from its opening in 1915, throughout the First World War until it closed 1919. Edith Maud Cliff, daughter of William Dewhirst Cliff of Meanwood Towers in Leeds was born in 1871. A woman of independent means, she began to train as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse in 1911. After the outbreak of the First World War, her cousin Albert Kitson, 2nd Baron Airedale offered his home, Gledhow Hall, for use as a VAD hospital. It opened in 1915 and Cliff was appointed its commandant, that is, officer in charge, a position she held throughout the war. She was awarded an OBE in the 1919 New Year Honours for her service. Cliff's scrapbook, ''The Great European War, Gledhow Hall Hospital'', documents life there between 1915 and 1919 in letters, photographs and newscuttings. Leeds Libraries consider this one of the treasures of their collection, along with a 1480 '' B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Bryans
Dame Anne Margaret Bryans (; 29 October 1909 – 21 April 2004) was a British humanitarian and healthcare administrator, remembered as an "indomitable doyenne of the caring profession." She spent much of her life in the service of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John of Jerusalem in England, serving with distinction with the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and Joint War Organisation during World War II. She was Chairman of the Joint Service Hospitals Welfare and VAD Committee from 1960 to 1989. Early years Anne Margaret Gilmour was born at 9 Atholl Crescent in Edinburgh, Scotland on 29 October 1909, the eldest child of the Rt Hon. Sir John Gilmour of Lundin and Montrave, 2nd Baronet, and Mary Louise (). She was privately educated at Montrave, the Gilmour family estate near Leven, Fife, by a Belgian governess and later studied at the Sorbonne. Career She joined the British Red Cross Society in the late 1920 and became a member of staff in 1938. She becam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mollie Skinner
Mary Louisa (Mollie) Skinner (18761955) was a Western Australian author, best known for the novel ''The Boy in the Bush'' co-authored with D. H. Lawrence. Biography Mollie Skinner was born on 19 September 1876 to a Western Australian family that had established itself during the early years of settlement, distinguishing her position an "ancient colonist" in the local society from the "t'othersiders" who arrived in Western Australia from the eastern states. The family's religion was the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Her mother was Jessie Rose Ellen, the daughter of George Walpole Leake, who had married James Tierney Skinner, a captain in the 18th Royal Irish Regiment. While born in Perth, her family took the infant Mollie to England and Ireland. She began her education in Edinburgh, but a painful condition of the eyes inflicted shortly afterward was treated by placing her in a darkened room for five years. The successful restoration of her health allowed her to begin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lady Ursula D'Abo
Lady Ursula Isabel d'Abo (''née'' Manners, formerly Marreco; 8 November 1916 – 2 November 2017) was an English socialite and aristocrat who served as a maid of honour to the Queen at the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937. She received international media attention after a photograph of her from the coronation, standing alongside the British royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, circulated in the news. The reports, focused on her beauty and distinctive widow's peak, led to a famous letter being written to the editor of a newspaper by an American, asking "who is the girl with the widow's peak?", which was later paraphrased as the title of her 2014 memoir, ''The Girl with the Widow's Peak: The Memoirs''. Her comparative youth to the rest of her travelling company, as well as her beauty and distinctive widows peak lead to her being nicknamed "the cygnet" by Winston Churchill while she accompanied the king and queen on a royal tour in France in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frances Cluett
Frances Cluett (June 25, 1883 – November, 1969) was an army nurse and educator from Newfoundland, noted for her service during World War I, and especially for her many letters back home beginning in 1916 that conveyed the eye-opening experiences of a young woman leaving home for the first time and explaining in vivid detail the horrors of war. Cluett was born in Belleoram, Newfoundland, and during the war served in the Volunteer Aid Detachment in Europe. Cluett's two dozen letters give a detailed account of her departure from St. John's, travels to New York City, London, France, and Constantinople, and of her amazement at the horrors of the front line. These letters are currently housed in the Centre for Newfoundland Studies at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, and are in the process being published to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the battle at Beaumont Hamel in which so many Newfoundland men lost their lives. Cluett wrote of her time spent attending countless so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An Autobiography
An autobiography is a book or other work about the life of a person, written by that person. Autobiography may also refer to: * ''Autobiography'' (Morrissey book) * ''Autobiography'' (Nat Adderley album) * ''Autobiography'' (Abdullah Ibrahim album) * ''Autobiography'' (Ashlee Simpson album), or the title track * ''Autobiography'' (film), 2022 internationally co-produced film * ''Auto-Biography'' (Le Car album) * John Cowper Powys's ''Autobiography'' * ''Autobiography'', the autobiography of British philosopher John Stuart Mill * "Autobiography", a song by British rapper from his 2021 album '' Conflict of Interest'' See also * ''An Autobiography'' (Nehru) * ''The Autobiography'' (Vic Mensa album) {{Disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery '' The Mousetrap'', which has been performed in the West End since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. ''Guinness World Records'' lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies. Christie was born into a wealthy upper middle class family in Torquay, Devon, and was largely home-schooled. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Testament Of Youth
''Testament of Youth'' is the first instalment, covering 1900–1925, in the memoir of Vera Brittain (1893–1970). It was published in 1933. Brittain's memoir continues with ''Testament of Experience'', published in 1957, and encompassing the years 1925–1950. Between these two books comes ''Testament of Friendship'' (published in 1940), which is essentially a memoir of Brittain's close colleague and friend Winifred Holtby. A final segment of memoir, to be called ''Testament of Faith'' or ''Testament of Time'', was planned by Brittain but remained unfinished at her death. ''Testament of Youth'' has been acclaimed as a classic for its description of the impact of World War I on the lives of women and the middle-class civilian population of the United Kingdom. The book shows how the impact extended into the postwar years. It is also considered a classic in feminist literature for its depiction of a woman's pioneering struggle to forge an independent career in a society only g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir '' Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the First World War and the beginning of her journey towards pacifism. Life and work Born in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Brittain was the daughter of a well-to-do paper manufacturer, (Thomas) Arthur Brittain (1864–1935) and his wife, Edith Mary (Bervon) Brittain (1868–1948). Her father was a director of family-owned paper mills in Hanley and Cheddleton. Her mother was born in Aberystwyth, Wales, the daughter of an impoverished musician, John Inglis Bervon. When she was 18 months old, her family moved to Macclesfield, Cheshire, and ten years later, in 1905, they moved again, to the spa town of Buxton in Derbyshire. Growing up, her only sibling, her brother Edward, nearly two years her junior, was her closest companion. From the age of 13, she atten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Velvet (film)
''National Velvet'' is a 1944 American Technicolor sports film directed by Clarence Brown and based on the 1935 novel of the same name by Enid Bagnold. It stars Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, Angela Lansbury, Anne Revere, Reginald Owen, and an adolescent Elizabeth Taylor. In 2003, ''National Velvet'' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Plot ''National Velvet'' is the story of a 12-year-old, horse-crazy girl, Velvet Brown, who lives in the small town of Sewels in Sussex, England. She wins a spirited gelding in a raffle and decides to train him for the Grand National steeplechase. Velvet is aided by a penniless young drifter named Mi Taylor, who discovered Mrs. Brown's name and address among his late father's effects, though he is unaware of why it was there. Hoping to profit from the association, Mi accepts an invitation to dinner and a night's l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
