VOLUNTEER nurse Frances Goodban worked for the British Red Cross from 1914 to 1919.

She served a total of 11,276 hours for no pay, but received expenses in the princely sum of £15.

At various hospitals, mainly in north Devon, she nursed hundreds of wounded servicemen who had been evacuated from the conflicts on the Western and Eastern Fronts.

More than 100 British and Commonwealth servicemen drew sketches or wrote poems and messages of gratitude in her autograph book, which have now been reproduced in a new book.

Among them are a handful of East Lancashire men — there may be more but if they signed their names with, say, Royal Field Artillery, we have no way of knowing where they are from.

One was Company Quarter Sergeant Major J Walker, of the 11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment, who did a sketch of a woman, see below and added With best wishes to Nurse Goodban.

it is likely that he was injured in the ‘big push’ that took place in the autumn of 1915.

This became known as the Battle of Loos and for many of Kitchener’s army, the wartime recruits, it was their first experience of major warfare.

After two and a half weeks of bitter fighting, 20,000 British soldiers lay dead.

Another to add his signature was Corporal F Hirst, of the 10th Battalion Yorks and Lancs Regiment, who was wounded at Fricourt on July 1 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, which claimed the lives of 60,000 Allied men.

Others were Private W Ardern, of the Lancashire Fusiliers, who was wounded at Messines 1917 and Private Fred Yeo of the East Lancashire Regiment, 40 division, who was wounded in January 1918.

Private N Durkins of the Loyal North Lancashires said he was delighted with Nurse Goodman’s attention to his wounds, received in Gallipoli in Novermber 1916.

Private H Gee of the 13th Manchester Regiment, who was invalided from Macedonia with trench feet in 1916, added this poem: ‘When this you see, just think of me, when I’ve left England’s shore, for when I’ve gone, to fight the hun, I’ll think of you the more’.

65Wounded servicemen were shipped to Southampton from the battle zones throughout France, Belgium and the Dardanelles and then sent on by train for treatment and convalescence at any hospital in the country.

n The Best Medicine, by William Webb, is published by Austin McCauley and is priced at £8.99.