The Somme - What Happened to the Casualties

[tommy mcclimonds]

This is just a preliminary note about a new book that will be appearing within the next couple of weeks. Written by Colonel Arthur Eakins, it is the long overdue history of the UVF/Somme Independent Hospitals, which began in 1915 and the work which still goes on today. The book covers how subsequent generations coped with the surviving casualties during the decades that followed The Great War, something that will strike a chord with many of us who watched the Time Watch programme presented by Michael Palin last night.

I should have a copy next week and I will post a more detailed review when I have had a chance to review the contents in a bit more detail. At this point in time I do not know the publisher or exact cost, only that all profits will be going towards the work of the Somme Nursing Home Patients Fund, a very worthwhile cause indeed, which anyone who knows Northern Ireland will testify to. When I get a bit more info I will hopefully be able to let interested pals know about how to order/obtain copies etc.

Please see the link below if you would like to see a bit more information about the present day work of the Somme Hospital in Belfast.

http://www.thesommenursinghome.co.uk/index.asp

Regards, Tommy.

[rob elliott]

Tommy,

Look forward to seeing that.

I have one of the original 1915 photo calanders they published. It came out of Fernhill house years ago.

Still has its A4 size envelope with the UVF logo on the front.

Did you see Eammon Holmes talking about his grandfather being up at the UVF hospital, James Craig's old house, which as you know was the

home of the Somme Association for a while.

Rob

[tommy mcclimonds]

Rob

I should have a copy of the book tomorrow night and will post a quick update/details on Thursday evening, time permitting of course. Yes, I did see the Eamonn Holmes programme and I also visited the Somme Association many times before they moved on to their current purpose built building. Thanks for the e-mail and book flyer as well. I must say I am really looking forward to the reprint later this month of "Three Cheers for the Derrys" by Gardiner S Mitchell.

Regards, Tommy.

[Desmond7]

One of my mother's early memories was being taken to the UVF hospital in Belfast. She is (or was until sad and severe dotage set in recently) certain that she was taken as a child to the hospital to visit her father who had been gassed in WW1 and died from TB in 1930. My mum was born in 1919 so George (her dad) didn't hang around when he got home from a German POW camp!

She also told me some years ago of a 'side ward' where the very severely burned or facially disfigured men were kept/treated. She remembered her mother hurrying her past the door.

I wonder if that rings true with anyone who has more knowledge? Would the hospital have provided treatment for men with long term complications due to their war service?

[tommy mcclimonds]

I was able to obtain a copy of this book last night. It is a small A5 paperback of some 85 pages. It's first few chapters cover the formation of the 36th Ulster Division, the early setting up of the hospital, throught the early war years and is full of interesting facts and figures. By 31 October 1916 some 1241 casualties from the BEF in France and Belgium had passed through the hospital in addition the hospital had dealt with a further 966 from Scottish Command and 57 from BEF Mediterranean. Over 500 operations had also been completed with no deaths!

It is illustrated with a number of photographs, an Operating Theatre at the Main Hospital, Queens University as well as the Nursing Staff pictured in the Quad at Queens in 1918. There is a picture of a ward in Dunbarton House, Gilford, as well as the veranda of the Londonderry Wing of the Hospital. The figures quoted are truely staggering with the hospital working at full bed occupancy of some 640 patients. By 1921 over 15,000 soldiers had been treated at the hospital. Re-organisation followed post war and Galwally as it came to be known was ready for occupation at the end of 1925.

The next few chapters cover the care of patients post war, the interwar period and then the role the hospital played during WWII. Indeed my own father spend some time there convalescing after he was wounded by shellfire in Belgium in 1944. The remainder of the book covers the hospital post WWII, the adjustments when the NHS was born in 1948, right up to the 1970's and the new hospital opening in 1992.

The book is available at the Queens University Bookshop, priced at £10, with all profits going to the Somme Nursing Home Patients Fund. All in all the book is a very welcome addition, in it's unique way, to the history of the Great War and quoting from Peter Froggatt own preface to the book "this book can be recommended to all with a interest in the health and welfare of our troops, in war and peace, and explains how, here in Ulster, and unusual twist of history worked to their advantage."

Regards, Tommy.