Letter from Louisa Garrett Anderson Page 1

Letter from Louisa Garrett Anderson to Ivy Anderson. Written from 'L'Hopital Auxiliare 173. Hotel Claridge. Paris

Dearest Ivy

Thanks v. much for yr letter. We are always v glad to hear good reports of the Children's Hospital. Everyone is doing v. well there. Miss Burdett has been splendid about the work & so has Nurse Biggs & Sister Mason. It is courageous of Dr Lowry to have tackled major surgery. I hope the cases will do well. They are sure to.

Thank you very much my dear for all yr splendid help there & with our stores here. A number of bales are at the station & we hope to fetch them tomorrow. They contain all sorts of treasures - catgut, cellulose and especially oatmeal porridge for our scotchmen. It is enquired for daily as the French breakfasts aren't thought much of. Many of our men are convalescent. I am sending 10 to St Lazarre [sic] on Tuesday. From there they will probably go to England. We part with mixed feelings. They like getting a step nearer home & we love having mended them up to a point but it is a little pathetic sending them off in makeshift clothes, an all night train journey perhaps, to a military hospital which they detest. A visitor has just walked thro' the central hall where I am writing. She came to sing at the ward service this afternoon & talked to one of the men afterwards. She said he told her "It is grand here - just grand." She asked if he wd be inclined to give women the vote after being here. He said "If it rested with me I would give them 16". Everyone says our men seem happier than the patients in the other hospitals - & if that is so, makeshift arrangements & lax discipline & untidy mess don't matter.

It is getting cold here & it has rained for the last few days. Also our work has been slack & the war news perhaps rather disquieting, anyway we have felt a little less cheery. Obviously we cannot expect to get Englishmen here if the British army is much nearer the coast, where there is a good supply of base hospitals. Dr Murray & I went to see General Fevrier yesterday. He is the head of the French RAMC & it rests with him to decide where the French wounded are placed if the military authorities permit them to come into Paris. We were instructed to be at the Service de Santé at 8am: then ask for the Cabinet of the Directeur Général, to place ourselves 'devant la porte de son cabinet' & when 'un grand homme', of a certain age & covered with medals presented himself, to insist on an interview, however unwilling he might be to grant it. These mediaeval instructions were given us by the heads of the French Red Cross, who evidently did not wish to tackle him themselves. We carried them out & found the General most friendly. He promised us all the assistance in his power, assured us that he wd send us patients, & was tremendously amused by us. We brought him out to see the [?illegible]'s ambulance. His general staff followed & surrounded the ambulance. It is cleverly arranged - with a box for dressings by the driver's seat & water carriers & a primus stove & thermos flasks etc. They liked it tremendously & were only anxious to be shown how ventilation cd be eliminated. It is extremely difficult to get permits for motors unless they have military drivers, & it is impossible for us to get the password so that when we go out of Paris we must get back by 8oc. or wait outside the gate until the morning. We have had a great many aeroplanes over us today, one supposed to be German. The bombs have killed a few people but not enough to create any sort of sensation - Paris is still deserted & very dark at night. I hope Aunt Joey will not continue to stay at Alde House. She & Mother are better apart. Please give AGA my love & best thanks for 2 letters much appreciated. Much love also to Aaa please.
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Aunt Joey - Josephine Garrett - EGA's sister
Aaa - Helen Lorimer, who had looked after LGA and AGA as children
Children's Hospital - the Women's Hospital for Children, founded by Louisa Garrett Anderson and Flora Murray in 1912

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