Harvey Truman is my name

England is My Nation

Whittlesea is my dwelling place

And Christ is my Salvation

So when I’m dead and in my grave

And all my bones are rotten

Take up this book & in it look

You’ll see I’m not forgotten

 

25507 Gunner E H Truman, RFA

 

By the time war was declared in August 1914, over 70,000 men and women were active participants in British Red Cross Society or St John’s Ambulance VADs and over three quarters of these were women’s detachments.

 

The position of trained nurse in the women’s detachments was an important role and the title ‘nurse’ one which the British Red Cross Society was keen to clarify.  “By the term ‘trained nurse’” the Joint War Committee Reports 1914-1919 noted, “is meant a nurse who has completed a three years’ course of training in the service of a general hospital having a nurses’ training school attached and who, having qualified in the examinations of the institution, has received a certificate to this effect.”  What then to make of VAD members who looked like nurses, dressed like nurses but for the most part had only rudimentary first aid skills?  The Joint War Committee was unambiguous:

 

“In every large hospital there is a matron and there are sisters, staff nurses and probationers.  The matrons and sisters are addressed by their titles, but staff nurses and probationers are alike addressed as ‘Nurse’.  A probationer of only one day’s standing would consequently be called, for example, “Nurse Jones” and would be so called for the rest of her hospital career unless she were promoted…  It was therefore in accordance with the usual practice that a VAD member engaged in the nursing department of any hospital should be called ‘Nurse’ though in fact she was not a trained nurse.  Strictly speaking, she was not even a probationer, as her work was not preparatory to that of a fully trained nurse.”  Furthermore, the report continued, “The VAD members were only addressed as nurses in the wards.  They were not, and neither pretended to be nor aspired to be, trained professional nurses; nor were they entrusted with trained nurse’s work except on occasions when the emergency was so great that no other course was open.”

 

There were however, always the exceptions to the rule.  In an extraordinary paragraph headed ‘Irresponsible Nurses’ which says as much about patriotic fervour on the part of well-meaning ladies as is does about the protection of the British Red Cross reputation, the Joint War Committee Reports detailed cases of independent but unauthorised activity by some of the well-intentioned members.

 

“There is no doubt that at the beginning of the War, a number of irresponsible ladies clothed themselves in attire which had some resemblance to uniform, assumed the Red Cross, and attempted to set up hospitals at their own expense, intending to nurse in them themselves… Many were photographed in the costumes they had adopted, and the casual observer naturally supposed that they had some connection with the British Red Cross Organisation.  In one case, some influential ladies who had desired to set up a hospital and had actually made the structural alterations to the building they had provided for the purpose were unable to use it, owing to its not having been accepted by the War Office on the ground that it was not needed.”

 

In June 1914, reporting on the week-long county camp organised at Herne Common in Kent and attended by detachments not only from Kent but from other parts of the country as well, The Herne Bay Press, reported on the ‘official’ attire worn by the ladies present:

“In camp and for nursing, these ladies wear a grey cotton dress, apron, Army regulation white lawn cap, county arms badges and shoulder titles, linen cuffs and collars. For field work the uniform is navy blue coat and skirt, county buttons and shoulder titles, white blouses, white gloves, navy blue tie, black boots or shoes. The hat is of navy blue felt with red corded braid and county badge. The uniform is certainly very smart and suggests both comfort and efficiency.”

For those ladies who followed the official British Red Cross Society route and were called to active service through its headquarters at Devonshire House, there was a letter from Katherine Furse, Commandant-in-Chief of the Women’s VAD.  The letter left none of the ladies in any doubt what was expected of them.  “Remember that the honour of the VAD organisation depends on your individual conduct” the letter began.  “It will be your duty not only to set an example of discipline and perfect steadiness of character, but also to maintain the most courteous relations with those whom you are helping in this great struggle.  Sacrifices may be asked of you.  Give generously and wholeheartedly, grudging nothing, but remembering that you are giving because your Country need your help.”  She ended the letter with three sentences: “Do your duty loyally.  Fear God.  Honour the King.”  A prayer was printed on the back.

 

In Sussex, the organisation of VADs was divided into seven separate regions. Chailey fell in the Mid Sussex region and its detachment was the 54th to be registered in the County.  Sussex 54 VAD had been born.

 

Today, Sussex is not one county but two - East and West.  Chailey lies in East Sussex on the main East Grinstead to Lewes road and nestles in beautiful, largely unspoilt rolling countryside.  Haywards Heath to the east and Lewes to the south are the nearest large towns.  Brighton, further south still is only 16 miles away.  

 

The name Chailey derives from the Anglo-Saxon ‘Chag’ meaning boom or gorse, and ‘Ley’ (or ‘lea’) meaning meadow, the earliest mention of the name appearing in two 11th century charters dealing with grants of land.  By 1911, the population of Chailey was 1,580, the parish extending over nearly 6,000 acres, the chief arable yield being wheat, oats, peas and root vegetables. 

 

In actual fact, Chailey is not one village, but three, and the older residents of each composite part are still today, as they were in pre First World War England, stubbornly territorial about the part of Chailey in which they live. North Common, Chailey village and South Common together make up Chailey.  North Common lies on the cross roads of the East Grinstead to Lewes and the Heathfield to Horsham roads, the settlement being built up around a coaching inn. A church was built here in the 1800's but is now abandoned. Chailey village is the old part of the village and lies about two miles south of North Common, its pretty 13^th century church, St Peters, is the focal point here and in 1914 there were also a number of small businesses operating there.  Further south still, on a seam of Sussex clay, lies South Common.  In 1703 a business was established there to manufacture bricks and the trade continued there well into the twentieth century.

Opposite the Five Bells pub, just off the main road between Chailey Village and South Common, Cinder Hill runs north west towards Newick and it is this road above all others that holds the key to Chailey’s VAD contribution during the Great War.  Scattered along its length are a number of country residences, (some now divided into spacious apartments), the owners of which played key roles in Chailey village life generally and Sussex 54 VAD in particular.  Elsewhere too in Chailey, large country houses dominated the village landscape and the dedication and generosity of their owners ensured that the role of Sussex 54 VAD during the Great War was a significant one.

 

Principal amongst the landed gentry who lived in Chailey at the time Hickwells was flourishing was the Blencowe family.  Bineham Mansion, built in 1853 and lying between North Common and Chailey village, was the family seat but Robert Campion Blencowe, the oldest of eight children brought up there, also owned The Hooke, a sizeable estate in South Common.  In addition, the rectory of St Peters, comprising a residence and six acres of land was his gift and had been occupied since 1894 by the rector, the Reverend Thomas Harry Lee Jellicoe. 

 

William Greaves Cotesworth JP, Joseph Robert Wright, Henry W Bessemer and Henry T G Blaauw also headed powerful and influential households at this time and they, their families and their properties, would play critical roles in Chailey when Britain went to war in 1914. 

In 1912, Lieutenant Colonel Wyndham held the honour of County Director of The Sussex Branch of The British Red Cross and by the end of that year, the Mid Sussex Division could boast two men’s and eight women’s detachments staffed by 95 male and 203 female personnel.  By the end of the following year this had grown to three men’s and thirteen women’s detachments with a staff complement of 110 men and 336 women and there wasn’t even a conflict in sight!

 

The detachments, under the guidance of their commandants, kept themselves busy by attending local Red Cross Society meetings and there was also the opportunity to attend first aid courses.  But the event which everyone looked forward to was the annual Field Day which was attended by detachments from throughout the county.

 

Those attending the Field Day at Stanmer Park, Falmer on 1st June 1914 were asked to suppose that an engagement had taken place in the heights somewhere in the neighbourhood of Crowborough and that there had been heavy casualties.  Two companies of Territorials from Lewes obligingly played the part of the rival warring factions and before battle commenced, each man was informed how he would be injured and was handed a label with his number and a description of the nature of his wounds.  Two months later, the same Territorials would be volunteering to serve overseas with the 1/4th and 1/5th Sussex Regiment and many would shortly be collecting real wounds in Gallipoli and France.  For now though, The Stanmer Park Field Day provided the opportunity for the Territorials to practice soldiering and they played their parts willingly enough; falling to the ground and hoping to be rescued and pampered by a pretty nurse.

 

As for the nurses, as well as attending numerous courses in first aid, nursing, drill and semaphore, each VAD was given a specific role to fulfil for the coming battle and Sussex 54 VAD found itself pitched together with Sussex 78 VAD from Worthing to perform the function of a Base Hospital.   As the men and women of Sussex performed their duties in their stationary hospitals, rest stations and clearing hospitals, they were closely inspected by Surgeon-General H R Whitehead, deputy director of medical services in the Eastern Command who strode across the park praising them when a kind word was all that was needed, or admonishing them when they fell short.  All agreed at the end of the day, that it had been a most useful experience.