Introduction and the Four Volumes of Diaries and three early letters

• Introduction to the Diaries and three early letters

• The Early Letters - 11 October 1914; 9 December 1914; 23 February 1915

• Volume 1 - 5 April 1915 to 29 May 1915

• Volume 2 - 25 July 1915 to 25 April 1916

• Volume 3 - 8 May 1916 to 15 November 1916

• Volume 4 - 21 June 1918 to 27 December 1918

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Introduction to the Diaries

Update: 23 April 2009.
We have recently (March 2009) found three letters from Edie which shed new light on her movements prior to those recorded in her diaries. You can read these precious new finds here: www.edithappleton.org.uk/EarlyLetters/early_letters.asp.  In the first letter, we learn that on Friday 9 October 1914 Edie left Southampton and travelled, via Dungeness and Dover, arriving at Ostende at 3am on Sunday 10 October 1914.  After a day or two in Ostende she sailed, she thought bound for Dover, but after anchoring off Dunkirk she arrived in Boulogne. By 9 December 1914 she was writing from No 10 Stationary Hospital which, records show (http://www.1914-1918.net/hospitals.htm), was at St Omer from October 1914. A third letter, dated 23 February 1915, is from No. 3 CCS (Casualty Clearing Station) which, according to recorded history, was at Hazebrouck at that time.  No. 3 CCS was forced, by enemy action, to move to Poperinghe in April 1915 and then to Bailleul in May. 

The diaries themselves are in 4 'volumes'. Volume one comprises 19 typed pages and the other three volumes are handwritten in three journals covering a total of over 400 pages. There are a number of delightful small sketches in volumes 2 to 4 as well as a few other items: press cuttings, three poems, a sheet of used blotting paper and some rough notes pages.

With short periods of leave back home, Edie was in France for the entire duration of the war but the first volume doesn't start until April 1915 (see notes below) and the final volume ends part way through 27 December 1918 with the back of that volume clearly missing. If anyone reading this website knows the location of the missing volumes - perhaps in a second-hand bookshop or even in a museum collection - we would dearly love to hear from you; please get in touch via the Visitor's Book.

We are greatly indebted to Sue Light whose website SCARLETFINDERS (http://scarletfinders.co.uk/) we discovered in March 2008 and which contains a wealth of information about British Military Nurses including Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service.  Sue has passed on much vital information about Edie:

• She signed her initial contract with ‘His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the War Department’ on 27 August 1914.
• She joined at Fort Pitt, Chatham on 16 September 1914.
• Service from 15 September 1914 to demobilisation on 22 December 1919.
• Her service record shows her at a whole list of Casualty Clearing Stations, Hospitals, an Ambulance train and then on 20^th February 1919 to Nurses’ Hostel, Boulogne to join the staff of the Matron-in-Chief, Miss Maud McCarthy, who Edie mentions a number of times in her diaries.
• Awarded Royal Red Cross (First Class) in 1917.
• Awarded OBE 3^rd June 1919.

In her blog, This Intrepid Band, Sue says of Edie's diaries:

"It's a wonderful account of life and work at casualty clearing stations, in hospital and on trains, alternating between outlining the horrors of her work and describing the pleasantries of her off-duty time. Edie has a dry sense of humour which must have helped her through some of the difficult times, both physical and emotional."

Sue Light also has a most fascinating and detailed account, written by Maud McCarthy, of the work of the Casualty Clearing Stations on her Scarletfinders website: http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/10.html. Very well worth reading right through as it gives a clear and unadorned view of the official thinking behind the CCSs and they ways in which they evolved during the war. It is particularly worth reading Section 6 (6. ARRANGEMENTS IN CONNECTION WITH TEMPORARY CLOSING OF UNITS) of the account which deals, in part, with the evacuation in April 1915 of CCS No. 3 at Poperinghe.  Then read Edie's first hand account of being shelled: in Volume One - from 24 April onwards.

Early Letters:

1. 11 October 1914. The journey by ship from Dover via Ostende to Boulogne

2. 9 December 1914. From No 10 Stationary Hospital at St Omer

3. 23 February 1915. From No. 3 CCS (Casualty Clearing Station) at Hazebrouck

Volume 1 - 5 April 1915 to 29 May 1915

Volume 2 - 25 July 1915 to 25 April 1916

This volume covers the period when Edie has returned from 10 days leave in late July 1915 until late April 1916. She is right behind the front lines at Casualty Clearing Station No. 3 near Ypres. In November 1915 she gets orders to move to General Hospital No. 1 at Étretat, between Le Havre and Fécamp. This hospital, established in December 1914, was one of several hospitals on the Normandy coast which were on the casualty evacuation chain.  There are a number of mentions in Edie's diary that she longs to be back near the Front. However, she remains there and is still there in Volume 3 in November 1916.

Volume 3 - 8 May 1916 to 15 November 1916

Edie is still stationed at General Hospital No. 1 at Étretat.  This volume begins with a number of little sketches and is a sustained account of everyday life at one of those hospitals on the French coast. Periods of what Edie calls slackness, with time for beautiful walks in the countryside and the occasional trip out in some sort of vehicle, are mixed with days and weeks of relentless pressure as convoy after convoy unloads wounded soldiers (including Germans) for treatment. Many are too badly wounded to survive for long.

Volume 4 - 21 June 1918 to 27 December 1918

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