Chapter 6. Ringwood Day by Day

“Home at last”—just a few miles from the south coast of England across from the Channel Isles and the French coast below Calais.  Home in Ringwood but—horrors!  No go.  As the GIs and medical staff worked day and night to gear up for patients, we Red Cross staff were grounded.  None of our Red Cross recreation and office furniture and supplies arrived with the 95^th, supplies as expected.  The Army didn’t have a clue why, so the 3 of us in Recreation decided to write home for help.

How dreadful it would be if we had no personal items for the GI patients, especially at crisis times, like Christmas we speculated.  Soldier patients and the hospital, at such times used soap, toothbrushes, washcloth, shaving supplies and cigarettes, pipes, and tobacco, if possible, bagged in a small ditty bag from the Red Cross.  None had arrived, nor had games, books, craft shop tools, office materials and, worst of all, records and the combination radio and record player.

I wrote family and friends to plead for small boxes of personal items, playing cards, chips, to be mailed to me and the other two co-workers did the same.  My parents put the plea into the Lamar Daily News asking all the readers to send the items.  Our efforts made us feel better.  Later we learned that military rules forbade asking for packages because of limited mailing capacity.  Too late!  We didn’t know that.

We took the train to London to seek help from the British Red Cross.  The compassionate official listened and exclaimed “How LOVELY!”  No help there.  But we were furious at her unconcern.  Much later we learned that in England “How lovely!” is like we say “Damn, hell, spit!”

Finally everything arrived, we set up the recreation hall, complete with a wood and metal workshop, card tables, sofa, chairs, office needs, phonograph and radio combo with many current pop and country music records, and a fairly good selection of classical music too.  There were carrying baskets to take comic books, cards and personal items into the wards.  There were many craft shop supplies:  paints, wool for knitting, some leather, many tools and designs, instructions.

The local Red Cross provided an upright piano and two or three volunteers.  They let us know that they were there to help us any other ways they could.  One, a doctor’s wife from Ringwood, was invaluable in working with me to set up and run the workshop.  Together we learned lots from the GIs—we knew how to countersink screws and everything!

            Ordinarily we had two or three hundred guys in their striped cotton flannel army pajamas and long dark blue robes in the big concrete building at a time.  Probably half were NP patients—neuropsychiatric or now named traumatic distress disorder, TDD.  They were usually distant, hard to talk to, didn’t participate often.  Frequently chaplains from their outfits came by to visit, even one or two from their outfits, sometimes knowing something about a fellow that might suggest how we might draw him out.  Seldom did any of our three psychiatrists assist us—or the patients, as far as I could determine.

The rec. hall was open early in the morning until 9pm each night.  Card tables and small group arrangements were always available for their use and we scheduled large group events as often as possible.  We had sings, games—bingo several times a week at night as well as daytime. Occasionally party times were scheduled with group relays, games, talent programs if some of the GIs (or officers) had singing or other talents.  The loud country music almost never stopped from morning until night.  I’d almost never listened to it before so I found it tiring—so relentless—often the same two or three selections got played over and over again for 10 hours!

We worked literally day and night.  The routine was to have two days off after working 12-hour days for two weeks. Then at separate times each of us five took off separately for a couple days.  I usually stayed in a boarding house outside Salisbury Cathedral Close and spent the day visiting old book stores, antique shops and interesting park areas or just meditating, resting in the beautiful old 14^th Century Gothic nave.  En route sometimes I got off the bus at Stonehenge and strolled over that ancient worship shrine, resting.  Once in a while I’d take a bus into Bournemouth and enjoy that sophisticated city—also staying in a boarding house.

After a few weeks I bought a used bike.  Then I could have a lunch packed and spend the vacation day biking all over the hedge-rowed farm country enjoying the quiet fresh air, often strolling into a tiny church with its Bibles chained to the pews, reading the cemetery carvings—and usually having lunch in the sun on top a stone vault.

Sometimes I drove by an all-Black American army post, a few miles from our outfit.  Several GIs always ran following me inside their fence wanting to chat with me.  Like the English girls I waved and greeted them—but couldn’t stop.  I didn’t dare say anything and give away my secret nationality.  What a treat it must have been for them to feel comfortable greeting a white girl their own ages!