Women and Their Work

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 1164, 3 November 1917, Page 10 (Supplement)

Women and Their Work

Women March to Armageddon Most Interesting of War Movements §

TO following article, by Max PemS8 berton, in the "Weekly Despatch," <3s tells °f the Women's Army Auxilro ' ary C°rps, which is characterised CO "' * ne mos ' interesting of late £R ' n a reccn ' London letter as "one yV war movements." Mrs Chalmers CD Watson is mentioned as "one of the discoveries CO of the war," and is a sister of Sir Eric Geddcs, the SS First Lord of the Admiralty, and Sir Auckland TO Geddes, Minister of National Service. She is CO also a niece of Mrs Garrett Anderson, M.D., and SS was the first woman M.I), in Scotland:— I went up to Devonshire House the other day £Q to have a little chat with Mrs Chalmers Watson, GO M.D., concerning one of the greatest enterprises §that the war has yet established. How the world has changed—what miracles these brief years have wrought; how far we seem from all the things that were. Noi three hundred years ago there was a CO farm hereabouts, and cows for the milking. £y£ Wagons passed by to the sloughs of the country roads and men cut each other's throats §atnid the deer of Hyde Park. Coming to our own time, we remembered the Derby night balls in this fine old gloomy Devonshire House, the P3 "brilliant spectacles" of the penny society papers, /y\ and the confidential gentleman who told you TO just what King Edward did not say down at £jg Marlborough House, where his famous Derby §Day dinner was among the preliminaries. For the rest, the old house was just a red block of ugliness—often shut up and so seemingly desertGQ c d that a flunkey's face at the window was as § interesting as an apparition of the first duke. If this be anyone's idea of Devonshire House to-day, I would exhort him or her to step from the pavements of Piccadilly to take one glance TO at the activities which even its outer hall re--00 veals. No longer is the spectacle "brilliant," 3vv though eminently one to cheer. Busy women CO are moving everywhere—women of all ages; CO children passing up and down the marble stairs; X 3 ladies in uniform entering this room or that; CO nurses, messengers, soldiers, all upon a set purqC> pose in this hive of tremendous endeavour. The work that they are doing is so wonderyS ful in is ambitions and its actualities that fj3 nothing but Armageddon could have inspired or TO permitted it. No side show, no society for £3 doing this or that which might well be left GO undone, but a contribution to the weapons of CO victory so generous that in the day of victory §0 the nation will surely remember. CO Here was the first of the many ideas which S$C my little talk with Dr. Chalmers Watson awakTO ened. Something is known of the Women's CO Army Auxiliary Corps, but were all known the £yj imagination' of the public would surely be TO stirred. Certainly it is going to be one of the PO most remarkable things of the war, if it be not £q that already. Beginning very quietly some CO fourteen months ago, it is now, in brief, a fQ scheme for substituting actually in the Army 00 the work of women for that of men wherever TO such substitution is possible. ££} It has taken three years of war for us to CQ realise that in many cases women could do this TO work as well as or better than men. For long q§ they worked here, punching our tickets, driving Cfb our cars, waiting at club tables, acting as com*j33 missionaires, ousting our butlers and our footCo men, but the great inspiration had yet to come. CO At last we were driven to it, so truly is invengg tion the mother of necessity. Combed-out inCo dustries, the frequency of the recruiters' plea, CO "We can do not more," drove the man-seeker to S3? desperation. In his despair a great light came cH to him. What of the women? He remembered c 25 them as St. Cuthbert remembered the name of §g his patron saint when the devil sat down to Co his dinner. Now this should have been obvious from the So? beginning. Ruling out heavy mechanical labTO our, there were few occupations or industries SB

GO at the front which women could not serve as Sx well as men. Ask them to drive an ambulance, CO to become hospital orderlies, to cook, to sew, CO to make smoke helmets, to keep books, to act as >s£ paymistresses, and in all these employments you CO would find them capable. A beginning was CO made some fourteen months ago with a few gi pioneers upon the western front, and was found TO , to answer perfectly. PO | The volunteers were sent to a base, of qx 1 course, and no inspiring Boadicea was asked to TO stand upon a hillock and rally her ancient W Britons—but at the base the workers did won- sg, ders. Efficient, willing, making no complaint TO as to hours or duties, they were heart and soul in the winning of the war. And, naturally, m it was an adventure into wonderland which TO fired the imagination of many. To be near the y^ heart of things, to hear the distant guns, to qo send a God speed after the fighters and wel- CO come the weary men home, surely an occupa- <jj^ tion most desirable. Can we be surprised CO that the movement spread so rapidly and.has TO now attained a magnitude which is bewilder- CO ing? CO "France remains the Mecca of most TO women's imaginations," said Mrs Chalmers H5 Watson to me, "but when I x tell you that one CO of our many camps in the north is planned for Jkx a thousand women you will realise what we are CO doing. Great as are the opportunities across CO yonder, they are not without their difficulties— >6r happilv for'the most part overcome. TO "Coloured labour is one of our troubles, GO and naturally we do noi think it wise to develop i&s our efforts in its vicinity; but that is a detail TO after all. Generally speaking, the girls are bil- GO leted in a town or village. We do not put them >££ in huts when we can possibly help it, and in TO measuring accommodation we say that two girls GO need the space usually devoted to three men. iff This you will readily understand, though it is no TO case of frills and furbelows, but merely of a C£> woman's inherent necessities. * fp "Our workers are not enlisted in the usual TO waj. They sign an enrolment form which C£> pledges (hem to serve until the end of the war, and if they fail thev are liable to punishment TO under the Defence of the Realm Act. Discipline, H-j> lam glad to say, is easilv maintained, for the {&, keenness of all our recruits is remarkable; but CO there will be black sheep in every family, and J^ so we have a system of penalties, mild and Co otherwise, in case we meet with exceptions to CD our rules. GO "At the moment one of my greatest an- CO xieties is the medical question. It is becoming CO clear that these vast forces can never be treated >g by local doctors, panel or otherwise. The for- TO mer have in some cases been called up, and the GO latter are hopelessly overworked. And how is ££b any doctor to attend single-handed to a camp of TO a thousand women? What we need is R.A.M.C. CO provision, and that we shall get. Meanwhile, q< our greatest hopes are being realised and the TO spring campaign should witness a revolution of GO service like to none the world has known. qA "This does not seem to me an exaggerated TO estimate. These vast armies of women, the £■£<> majority in their neat khaki uniforms, are go- £p ing out to release fighters for the trenches. They TO will add to our forces large numbers of soldiers %j$ who otherwise would be at the desk, in the hos- GO pital, or at some transparently civil employ- CO ment. And they-will carry to the task an en- sjs thusiasm and a-lovaltv which no man could CD better. 22 "War has known no such adventure since to the Amazons—and these are no Amazons, but GO the girls we have known, the wives and mothers S6? and sisters who were the light of our homes in to the old time and will return to lighten them GO again. JXft "A very great affair, and one surely to set Co every man' who stays at home thinking. Are 00 we quite sure that our end of the rope is being £6v as well looked after?" / CO 83

They went to wars across the sea, ' A/T J What music for the dead shall Each with a dream before his Of IVIOTWTYICTItWTI sound cy 63 : r\ . . O'er strange-ploughed furrows Pride or adventure it may be, KcqUlYlS where they lie? A hope, a vision, or a prize, • , _ .* . ... , . A secret star some day to rise. About our paths the great dreams "Your tower shall build, your lost go, be found, The pride is ours that lit them then, The golden thoughts burning and Your dream be true . . .? O vicMerry adventure calls away; dear, t __ The prizes fall to other men, Waiting to hear the call they know, * - t But who unlighted by their ray And we must give it, we, the Thax we must win ere we to ° Ql "' Can dream the dreams none dream- sere, • ed but they? Soon to be silent, waiting here. —Lucy Masterman.