TOPIC:

Brian, Rory & Mike
I am very touched that you should take an interest in the nurse missing from my collection. Although nurses resident in Natal were indeed relatively few in number, there were many more who came from elsewhere during the Natal Campaign, and even after it was over. My most recent failed effort to acquire such a medal was a bid for the QSA to a nurse who had served on the Hospital Ship 'Nubia' in Durban Bay. She would have been an ideal companion for Private Frank Rowell of the Maritzburg Ambulance Corps, who spent the war as an Orderly on the 'Nubia'. Like Lieutenant Hall, Private Rowell is still companionless.
Regards
Brett

Brett

I wonder if Frank Rowell and the Nubile Nurse aboard the Nubia knew each other - not in the biblical sense of course but purely as working colleagues. I suppose they must have although there wouldn't have been much time for fraternising.

We know where one of the QSA's are but, for now, its unattainable.

Regards

Rory

I shall look forward to your thread on Hall in due course.

Brett Hendey wrote: Lot 61 arrived safely in its new home two hours ago. Sadly for Hall's QSA and his medical school medallion, they are now in far less illustrious company, but they will nevertheless be loved and cared for. Since there is now a doctor in the house for companionship, the need to find a Natal nurse's QSA is more urgent than ever.
Brett

Rory
I feel certain that the nurse and Rowell would have known one another, The 'Nubia' was not large, and being confined on a ship is more conducive to contact that at a hospital on shore.

Nurses worked closely with orderlies, but not always harmoniously. Nurse Kate Driver, who was a Natal Volunteer Nurse in Ladysmith, kept a diary that was published by the Ladysmith Historical Society. In it she praised some of the orderlies at Ntombi, but added:
"Of the rest it is hard to speak, They did such vile and brutal things: they stole the food and stimulants, they treated the patients with utter callousness and often with cruelty; and their language to nurses was unspeakable. I used to feel sometimes that if I were a man I would have given many of them the biggest hiding they had ever had."
Unlike the nurses at Ntombi, the orderlies worked only eight hours a day, "four during the day and four during the night. They were sometimes one, two and three hours late, and many times would not come at all."

I expect that there was better discipline on a British hospital ship, so Pte Rowell probably behaved himself.

Frank
I will be ordering Hall's files in the Maritzburg Archives soon - there isn't much - but getting his records from the medical school in Glasgow, and earlier ones, may be more of a problem.

Regards
Brett

Hello Ian,
Don't worry, they do turn up from time to time, I found the hardest one to find was an example to the 1st Royal Welsh Fusiliers, it took me until last year to complete the set and I would have much preferred a Welshman, but, as I told Paul, I have ended up with another Englishman.
Not so surprising perhaps, it was after all very much a local regiment and recruited from Chester down the coastline to Caernarfon, with their depot actually at Wrexham.
Lot 122 was certainly not cheap, moreover, I could not see any service papers for that particular gentleman either, if you are going to buy an example, try and find a recipient whose papers have survived and if he was entitled to anything else, a KSA and so on, make sure it is present, or you will spend the rest of your days looking for it.

The prices now being paid have to be placed in context, these medals were never cheap, I think I actually paid around £250 for the first one I bought, but, of course that price is really quite insignificant when it came to the recipient earning the medal and clasps in the first place, the actual price he paid, was, so much greater.
Kind regards Frank

LinneyI wrote: Frank and Meurig
I have been after this clasp combination for years! Didn't see the two offered in 2014. Lot 122 has the KSA as well; previous example seen did not. The pair will fit in well.
Regards
IL.

Frank
Still no advice from CC regarding the "double relief" pair; however they can be a bit slow (and of course, there is always the "Errors and Omissions Excepted" clause).
Buying any QSA is always a bit of a lottery as far as surviving papers are concerned - I am sure you are well aware of that! However, they are what they are and - in the case of specific action clasps - reading the activities of the unit concerned always gives me a buzz.
Best regards
IL.