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Attention, attention, action this day you are listening to We Have Ways and Making You Talk

and it's a Dunkirk Week PS edition.

We are delighted to be joined.

I mean this is quite extraordinary really because we've spoken to academics, historians,

experts and to each other at great length but we haven't actually spoken to someone who,

well, Ethel, welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for joining us on We Have Ways.

Now, well, I'll leave it to you.

Why are we talking to you about the Dunkirk evacuation?

Because I was there right from the beginning of the war at the Burntwood Military Hospital

where we had the first convoy back to this country after the Dunkirk Fiasco.

And because I'd say that if there was a war, I would join the Civil Nursing Reserve,

which meant I would have to go to a military hospital.

And the nearest hospital to where I lived was Burntwood Hospital.

The military hospital was built in the grounds of St Matthew's psychiatric hospital

and built especially for the war and just finished in time.

Over a year when we knew there would probably be a war, I joined the St John Ambulance Brigade

and became qualified in all the different things, you know, first aid home nursing.

And then I was then a VAD which was a nurse, not fully trained.

So there was a first aid post in every village.

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