Volunteers for the Women’s Auxiliary wanted
HERE in our regular nostalgia feature we look back at stories in the Rochdale Observer from years gone by. Following on from last year’s 100 years ago feature, this year, we are turning back the clock to see what was being reported on 80 years ago:
●●WOMEN’S AUXILIARY
A BATCH of recruits from the 20th East Lancashire (Rochdale) Company of the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service were pictured starting their training at the Rochdale Territorial Drill Hall on Wednesday evening.
Miss C. M. Nichol is the Commanding Officer of the Company, which is attached to the Rochdale Territorial Battalion (the Sixth Lancashire Fusiliers).
Volunteers for this service are required as motor drivers, clerks, cooks, orderlies and storewomen, and intending recruits should apply at the Drill Hall, Baron Street.
●●HONOUR FOR MR A HORROCKS OF NORDEN
MR Alfred Horrocks, Divisional Superintendent of the Norden Division of the St John Ambulance Brigade, has been made an Honorary Serving Brother of the Order of St John.
He has nearly 20 years’ service in the Brigade, of which 11 have been as Superintendent.
Mr Horrocks served throughout the war, enlisting at the age of 16.
He was, for a short period, at the Dardanelles, and was invalided home at the evacuation.
Later he went out East, serving for 12 months in the Gaekwar of Baroda’s Bombay residence.
From Bombay he was transferred to Madras, and afterwards visited various countries including Egypt, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong King, Japan, Siberia and Canada.
At present, Mr Horrocks is instructing first-aid classes for those in the Norden area.
He is a blood transfusion donor, and holds the rank of warrant officer in the Military Hospital Reserve.
He is the holder of the 1914-15 Star, the Victory Medal and the St John Long Service Medal.
●●BIRCH HILL HOSPITAL: AN APPRECIATION
To the editor of the Rochdale Observer.
After a serious operation and over a month in Birch Hill Hospital, I would like to pay some little tribute to the organisation and efficiency to be found there.
I had no idea there was any hospital in the country so well run.
It speaks volumes for the wonderful lady who is the Matron (Miss Copeland).
I was a private patient, but am told that ‘the ordinary patient gets the same treatment’.
In all, some 18 different nurses waited upon me, in a successful effort to bring me back to health and happiness.
Though their work is arduous, exacting – sometimes repulsive – not one in all the time showed the slightest weariness (though their hours are the clock round), distaste or sickness.
They all seemed in absolute love with their profession.
I doubt whether there is another hospital in the country as perfect.
It was a doctor who said: “God bless all good women! To their soft hands and pitying hearts we must all come at last!”
I have one criticism to make; not of Birch Hill Hospital, but of nursing generally.
It seems to me a terrible shame that nurses have no trade union, like the ordinary workman, to look after their interests.
Much of their work is arduous and nerve shattering, and their hours are twelve, or over.
We ought to legislate for them being no more than eight per day.
AN INDEBTED AND GRATEFUL AIR WARDEN. ●●THIS WEEK’S RECIPE THIS week’s recipe is for Sand Torte, a continental cake with an intriguing flavour.
Ingredients: 7oz potato flour, 1oz white flour, 8oz butter, 6oz castor sugar, 1oz ground almonds, whites and yolks of two eggs, 1 teaspoonful of grated lemon rind, juice of one lemon.
Method: Cream butter and sugar with a wooden spoon for twenty minutes, beat in yolks, add ground almonds, lemon rind and juice and flour. Fold in stiffly beaten whites. Bake in moderate oven for 35-40 minutes.
●●DO YOU KNOW?
DO you know that cracks in furniture can be satisfactorily filled with beeswax, or in the case of larger crevices, with a mixture of beeswax and fine sawdust?
After the filling has dried, polish with furniture cream in the ordinary way.
This hint wins a prize of 2/6 shillings for Mrs A Lyon, of Lee Bank.