Agate, 'Audrey' Etheldreda Honora (Oral history)

British civilian nurse in GB, 1939-1943; nurse served with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service in India and Burma, 1943-1945

REEL 1 Recollections of family and educational background. Recollections of nursing career, GB, 1930s-1943: attitude towards entering nursing profession; attitude towards possibility of war; outbreak of war; nursing training; treating troops ill with polio and tuberculosis; attitude towards nursing work; injury in air raid; midwifery training; applying to join Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, 6/1943. Recollections of period with QAs, GB: training, Shaftesbury Military Hospital; reasons for volunteering for service in Ceylon. Recollections of journey by ship to Bombay: work in ships hospital; uniform; conditions on board ship; social life; impressions of regular QAs, Territorial Army Nursing Sisters, and volunteer QAs. REEL 2 Recollections of period with QAs at Kohima, 9/1943: attitude towards posting to Kohima; journey to Kohima; opinion of Major Mary O'Connor; description of Naga village of Kohima; description of 53rd Indian General Hospital; opinion of Sister Martha McCrae; relationship between hospital staff; tropical diseases; opinion of General Wingate; arrival of Japanese troops in area and evacuation of 53rd Indian General Hospital; move to British General Hospital at Sylhet; opinion of General Wingate; reaction of Chindit patients to Wingate's death; physical condition of Chindit patients. REEL 3 Continues: organisation of tented hospital by Major O'Connor at Gologaht; conditions at hospital; attitude towards QA uniform; treating battle casualties from Kohima; role of 5th, 7th Indian division at Kohima; being sent to hidden airstrip near Kohima to wait for troops and possible casualties; comparison of regular and volunteer QAs; uniform; conditions on return to Kohima; move to 49th Hospital; treating tropical diseases; experience of Malaria; treatment of Japanese soldiers at hospital; story of Japanese patient's attempts to strangle her. REEL 4 Continues: attitude towards General and Lady Slim; meeting with Lord Mountbatten; impact of VIP visits on morale; meeting husband to be and marriage; return of husband to Burma; decision to return to GB with husband rather than go to Mandalay; physical and mental condition of husband; medical drugs available during war. Recollections of life post-war: difficulties for husband in adapting to civilian life; break up of marriage; returning to family home with children; impact of wartime service on life; difficulties in getting job of sister post-war; employment at Stoke on Trent Hospital; treating women infected with VD by service husbands; marriage to Dr Agate; memories of Kohima. REEL 5 Continues: treating women with VD and syphilis; problems of babies born with syphilis; details of treatment for VD and Syphilis; VD among troops at Kohima; relationship between Indians and British at Kohima.