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War Love StoriesLove stories of the First World War of British nurses and soldiers and other military love stories from World War Two and later years: Despite the horrors and hardships of war love blossomed between the QAIMNS (Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service) nurses and soldiers of the British Army. Many QAs fell in love with their patients and soldiers who worked at the hospitals or Field Dressing Stations. The book It's a Long Way to Tipperary: British and Irish Nurses in the Great War  by Yvonne McEwen
tells of the love between composer, poet and soldier Ivor Gurney and nurse Annie Drummond. They met when he was evacuated to Bangour War Hospital near Edinburgh in Scotland.
The army wedding photo above is from the collection of a QAIMNS(R) Sister Joan Cooper (nee Cameron) who served in India in 1946 and was the bridesmaid in the wedding photo taken in Secunderabad. The Matron was Margaret Hare but unfortunately she can't remember the bride's name. See more of Sister Cameron’s photos on the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service for India page. Below are a collection of war love stories from the QAIMNS and the QARANC. If you would like to add your own army love stories or those of your family then please contact me. I would particularly like to add army love stories from the Falkland’s Conflict, the Gulf War and Afghanistan. Love Story First World WarHere is a collection of First World War love stories. Edward Boulton and Hilda Ward Our first love story from the First World War was kindly narrated by the grandson (Andrew Fyfe) of Edward Boulton and Hilda Ward. His grandparents met at British Military Hospital Alexandria in Egypt and here are the events that led to their meeting: Captain Edward Boulton served in the Rifle Brigade and was aboard a ship in the Mediterranean during the Great War. His ship was torpedoed and he was injured. Fortunately the ship took some time to sink and he was able to be rescued. He was placed on a stretcher because of a serious leg injury and wound. Before he abandoned ship he asked his friend to take some photographs with his camera. This included a photo of his men leaving the sinking ship and going into the life rafts, jumping into the water (where sadly many lives were lost) and of himself on the ship lying on the stretcher despite his painful wounds. The next picture in the album were of Capt. Boulton wearing a dressing gown on crutches in BMH Alexandria with a British military nurse on each arm. One QA officer and nursing sister appears more and more in the photograph collection which is thought to be dated to 1914 to 1915 and this included visits to the pyramids and temples and swimming in the Red Sea. Captain Edward Boulton was unmarried and aged nearly forty and soon fell in love with Sister Hilda Ward. Captain Boulton recovered from his wounds in Egypt and was repatriated back to Britain though he would always walk with a limp. He had survived WWI and found love. He married Hilda Ward in Marylebone and was then dispatched to Falmouth in England, where he commanded a gun battery overlooking the harbour for the rest of the war. After World War One he retired from the army a received a disability pension from the Government. In 1918 their first child, Andrew's mother, was born in Falmouth. Findextrawork 
Since leaving the QA's we have done an assortment of self employed work and jobs, some which only take an hour a week, others have been full time. We
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Hilda Ward QAIMNS A bit of background about Hilda Ward QAIMNS: Hilda Ward was born in 1882. She was the youngest child of a well to do father who was the Managing Director of Stead and Simpson in Leicester. Hilda was bored by this life of considerable luxury and left home, against her father’s wishes, to become a nurse. Hilda Ward trained at the London Hospital and for many years assisted a famous eye specialist at Moorefields Eye Hospital in London before going to Egypt with the British Army as a QA Nursing Sister. The photos of Captain Edward Boulton and Sister Hilda Ward are with their daughter in the UK and Andrew, who works in the USA, hopes to be able to make copies soon. Bigamy Some QAs were not as lucky in love as Hilda Ward. Some soldiers and officers took advantage of the love of the nurses and during the daily struggle of life and death of war created an urgency to marry so that they could make love to their new sweethearts. Bigamy was a common occurrence and many wives left behind in Britain were unaware that their husbands had remarried without a divorce. Some of these bigamists had no intention of leaving their wives at home and only wanted a sexual relationship as some comfort of war. Others may have fallen in love with their new wives but were killed in action and only found out about the other wives when they padres or COs returned effects and send letters of condolences to the registered next of kin. In her book A Nurse's War  Brenda McBryde recalls one such whirlwind romance in which Mary MacDonald, a QA sister from the Highlands of Scotland, fell in love with an Artillery Captain. He was later killed in action and she received his personal effects from a dispatch rider. She took some comfort from these and that her lover had given his life for his country and men until a padre arrived to ask for the items back because they had been sent to her in error. They should have been sent home to his wife in England. Mary had to had his effects over, after taking out her love letters o him. She later learnt that he had also become engaged to a French woman.
Second World War RomancesNurses in the Second World War also found romance with soldiers. For example Betty C Parkin was a member of the QAIMNS(R) serving in a military hospital in Cairo when an engineer officer called Stanley of the recovery unit came to her ward. They fell in love and despite his dangerous job of going into minefields and battlefields such as the battle of El Alamein to retrieve weapons and vehicles for salvaging and burying the dead and her frequent postings to other field hospitals and hospital ships around the world they married, served out the war and had two beautiful daughters before his sad and untimely death from an illness caught in the desert. More about their remarkable lives be read in the book Desert Nurse: A WorldWar II Memoir  .
If you would like to contribute a love story involving a QA nurse then please contact me. If you like this page and would like to easily share Qaranc.co.uk with your friends and family please use the social networking buttons below: Tweet
A QARANC wall plaque and shield is available to buy through Amazon. The QA shield is hand made and ready to hang on the wall. . Buy Now.  View British Army Nursing Books - with free delivery available. If you would like to contribute to this page, suggest changes or inclusions to this website or would like to send me a photograph then please e-mail me. The photos and pictures on this page have been kindly sent to us for inclusion on this page. If you would like to contribute photographs then please contact us. For the official Army QARANC webpage please go to www.army.mod.uk/home.aspx For the QARANC Association website please go to www.army.mod.uk/army-medical-services/qaranc/9884.aspx *********************************************** The information request section has moved to the Army Nursing page. |
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