'FAIRY GODMOTHER'

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 92, 19 April 1945, Page 10

'FAIRY GODMOTHER'

WOUNDED N.Z. AIRMEN

NO REQUEST UNFULFILLED O.C. LONDON, February 16. A bomber crashed in an English field on its return from a raid over Germany. An hour later the pilot, a New Zealander, badly wounded and in pain, was in hospital, cared for by grave-faced doctors and deft nurses. When he awoke next day, after an uneasy sleep, his mind skipped the thousands of miles to home and New Zealand, to his mother and father. In his pain and sense of loneliness, thoughts of them gave him comfort, but they brought with them worry, too. For bhe knew that reports of his crash and injuries would cause them foreboding, and that official reports, being necessarily terse and formal, would bring little comfort. While these thoughts 'yet weighed upon his mind, a grey-haired, petite lady, with an air of calm motherliness, came quietly but firmly to his bedside. He answered her smile with a brave flicker of his lips, but her presence puzzled, him, for she was not in uniform, and vaguely he wondered who she might be. He did not know it then, but later he was to learn that he was but one of a gr6at many New Zealanders to meet her in those same circumstances of pain and mental uneasiness. He never forgot her, nor will he forget her, for Miss Mabel Thurston brought to him that morning, as to so many other wounded and sick New Zealanders, a touch of home and sympathetic understanding that meant so much at that moment. EASING HIS MIND. Within a few minutes she had introduced herself, promised to cable and to write to his mother and father, and to reassure them that he was "all

right"; she had left him writing paper, and a pencil, some New Zealand "comforts"—a cake, some jam, some tinned' fruit—and promised to write to him and return within a few weeks to see how he was progressing. When Miss Thurston had gone, he lay wondering, through the burn of his pain, how it was that a ' New Zea- j lander should so suddenly appear, within so short a time after his arrival in hospital, and bring just that touch which he needed so urgently at that moment. Still wondering, he fell asleep again. In his case it was actually coinci- j dence, for Miss Thurston had arrived to visit wounded and sick New Zealanders in the hospital the day before, and she had stayed over-night. In the morning the matron had told her of his arrival, and she had immediately gone to him. In the case of many other New Zealanders, a letter and a parcel usually arrives first from Miss Thurston saying that she will shortly pay a visit. TRAVELS 1000 MILES A MONTH. These visits have been made by Miss Thurston to hospitals throughout Britain from the earliest days of the war. With the exception of one black period two years ago, when she herself became ill from overwork, she has travelled an average of 1000 miles a month to see New Zealanders; and she has written a small mountain of letters to them and to their parents. Her work—although Miss Thurston does not regard it as work—began quietly and almost informally in the last months of 1939. Matron of the Christchurch Hospital from 1908 until 1915, matron-in-chief to the N.Z.E.F. in England from 1915 to 1919, and later matron at the military camps at Rotorua, Trentham, Hanmer Springs, and Pukeora until she retired in 1929, Miss Thurston was elected to the committee of the New Zealand War Services' Association when it was formed in: the early days of .this war. Her work during the last war had been recognised with the awards of C.B.E. and R.R.C., and her experience and background entirely suited her to the work of visiting New Zealanders in hospitals on behalf of the association. In these early days of the war in 1939, Miss Thurston made her visits by train, carrying heavy loads of comforts, aod making long weary journeys --■although she would never admit to weariness. A car, however, was soon provided for her by the association, and with Mrs. A. Bauchop, formerly of Hawke's Bay, as her driver, she loaded it up in London with as many com- ! forts as it could carry, and slipped j through the London traffic and out to the country districts and the military! hospitals. NEVER FALTERED. All through the long months of the "blitz" in the autumn of 1940 and the following winter months, the car, with its neat green ferri leaf on the windscreen, made its journeys to and from the city. Frequently Miss Thurston and Mrs. Bauchop had to take shelter during raids, but they never faltered in their purpose. Sometimes they became lost in fogs and arrived home hours late;'sometimes they lost their way on un-signposted roads; but always the visits continued. Later, when Mrs. Bauchop was, unfortunately, obliged to retire to the country for health reasons, Miss Betty Forsyth, of Waverley, who had driven an ambulance for the London County Council throughout the Battle of Britain and the bombings, took over her work. She has been with Miss Thurston ever since, a skilled driver, reliable, thoughtful. In addition to visiting New Zealand airmen, Miss TJhurston has always been to every hospital where New Zealand sailors have been patients. There have, of course, been very few soldiers from the Dominion in this country. Every week she receives from R.N.Z.A.F. Headquarters and from the Naval Affairs Officer a complete list of the men under medical care and the name of the hospital in which they are. A letter and a parcel are sent immediately to each on his arrival, and Miss Thurston particularly asks if they have any requests to make. Often there are many, but not once has a i request gone unfulfilled. Every week she maps out a programme of visiting and at the weekend she writes letters' and there are now many parents in New Zealand who know her handwriting. With her own experience as a matron, Miss Thurston has been readily accepted at every hospital, where she has made many friends among the staffs. Whenever she arrives .there is something like a small reception com-