They eventually married, and were blessed with a daughter. Sadly he became ill, and that was when he was transferred to hospital in Northern Ireland, where he met Betty. They stole a ship and managed to get it across the Channel to Dover before being transferred to the Atlantic run on the convoys. However, when they had to abandon their post, they were told to escape if they could, and along with a small number of other men, he marched into Belgium. He survived and was sent to the south of Holland to guard the sluices. He was a seaman aboard a minesweeper, which was bombed. But Betty's war didn't end there, for she was posted to Scotland, and then on to Northern Ireland, where she met her Dutch husband. They were incredibly fortunate to be put on the last hospital ship to be leaving the port of Boulogne. This comprised eight nursing sisters, including Betty, to 100 men! In other circumstances, she thought that might have been quite thrilling! When France was invaded in 1940, all the nursing sisters managed to escape in the charge of an army major, undertaking a lengthy and terrifying journey to Boulogne in an ambulance. In 1939 she was called up to the Territorial Army Nursing Service, which later became the Queen Alexandra Reserves, and was sent to France with the Casualty Clearing Station. She was sent away to boarding school, and then went on to train as a nurse, gaining her SRN and SCM, that is, State Registered Nurse and State Certificate of Midwifery. She said she had a blissfully happy childhood and teenage years.(This stood her in good stead later for the tribulations to come with the Second World War). Betty Neels was born on Septemin Devon to a family with firm roots in the civil service.
0 kommentar(er)
