WAR PICTURES

Grey River Argus, 13 February 1915, Page 3

WAR PICTURES

FAMOUS SINGER AS CHAFFEUR.

FAMOUS SINGER AS CHAFFEUR. Sir Frederick' Treves describes Red. Cross work in the north of France in an interesting. report issued on Tuesday by the British Red Cross Society. He says: "Tlie fleet of motor-ambulances provided by the society represents, in my opinion, the most valuable service ever rendered to the Army Medical Department in the form of voluntary aid. The majority nre working at the front in convoys of various sizes/When they icome down with patients they return with stores for the w.ounded. In BoulogTie a number of our ambulances stand ready night and day for whatever transport may be required. "Almost before the ambulance train from the front has pulled up at the platform our orderlies are at work. I saw a full train discharged and can only say that I have never seen a convoy evaluated with such rapidity and precision. The wounded are taken off at once to the wards or to the hospital ship. "In addition to the motor-ambu-lances the society has many other cars which are of great service in dispatch work and conveyance of goods; a large number of these have been lent. The chaffeur who was kind enough to drive me to'Le Touquet was Mr Kennerley Bumford, the famous singer. Another driver of note is the vicar of a quiet country parish in England. "The most curious car I rode in was driven by a Belgian. It had once been very elegant, being a town car of a fashionable type, but it is now the colour of the earth. It belonged tp a gentleman at Lille who fled from that toAvn -on the approach of the German. IJis present whereabouts is entirely unknown. In his flight he left his chaffeur, the Belgian, behind, but when in due course the chaffeur fled he very thoughtfully took the car with him, and after many adventures reached Boulogne and handed himself over to the British Red Cross Society, in whose employ he now is. He seemed little disturbed by the fact that he had taken the car out without his master's leave "These motor drivers are as curious a body of men as were the 'conductors' in the South African War. A dispatch rider on a motor-cycle was pointed out to me. He was working with distinc tion at the front, and had just come some sixty miles with a dispatch. He was merely a bundle of rags', splashed with mud, and I was surprised to hear ' that he was a much-respected Church of England curate.