British Red Cross

Okay.

Now, when World War I breaks out, that's two years later, she enrolled with the British Red Cross.

She's still working as a stewardess, and this time she's assigned to the HMHS Britannic.

This is the youngest of the Olympic class liners.

Socks, mufflers, wristlets, balaclava helmets.

The British Red Cross put out patterns.

American women organized knitting circles.

Canadian women sent parcels.

When the party was thus nearly made up, Dr. Monroe accepted Lady Dorothy Fielding, whose name became very well known in connection with her work for the Corps.

The British Red Cross had scoffed at this amateur band, but the Belgian Red Cross was willing enough to accept their useful services.

And when the British one found this out, it actually rose at length to giving them two cars, which necessitated the addition of two working chauffeurs to the party, and furthermore, it eventually gave them their passages to Belgium.

Thus, when they set out from Victoria for Ostend on that momentous day at the end of September 1914, the corps had a field of useful work open to them.

Mary, who has a head for detail, gives an exact list of them.

A 16 to 20 horsepower Wolseley ambulance, St. John Ambulance cart, a 75 horsepower Mercedes, and a 40 to 60 Fiat with a kitchen body.

Besides these, the British Red Cross had given them a lorry for fetching goods from Dunkirk, but it was such a beast that they exchanged it for a dear little 10 to 12 horsepower Moors, which did excellent work.

The first officer to occupy the small room was the son of General Jacquet, and his being entrusted to their care was felt to be a mark of great confidence.

And we'll be joined by our guest speakers, Hermione Elderton.

who is an emergency response officer for the British Red Cross.

And then later on, we'll be joined by Fazal Ahmed, who is a global director of operations for Humanity First International, and he is responsible for operations in 67 countries.

So that's a very interesting topic and segment to discuss this morning.

So earlier on, we did record an interview.

We took an interview of our guest speaker, Hermione Elderton.

She is actually an emergency response officer for British Red Cross.

So we did record that earlier on for our listeners at home.

today we're talking about how to change the world without losing yourself in the process.

So our guest is a powerhouse who has spent a decade raising major funds for heavy hitters, just like the British Red Cross.

But after facing burnout and redundancy, she decided to completely reinvent the game.

In 2020, she launched R1 Coaching to help charity leaders and professionals do incredible work without sacrificing their well-being.

I could phone people up who had never heard of the little hospice I was talking about and they'd sign up to £10 a month by the end of the call.

So, you know, it taught me a lot of rapport building, relationship building, a lot of resilience as well, because by goodness means you get your phone put down on you an awful lot in that job.

But six years later, I'd graduated and I ended up heading up all of the telephone fundraising campaigns for British Red Cross across the UK.

That was a really interesting time because we took everything in-house.

The fact that if I had an incident tonight, I could call upon the civil defence unit, that I'd have trained, vetted, uniformed volunteers.

I can do with my colleagues in established voluntary bodies, St John Ambulance, the British Red Cross and others, but they're not under my control.

I request them.

Civil defence was under the local authority.

And that is why I am glad that my former attitude was, if not inimical, at least very unenthusiastic, so that I am clear of the charge of seeing things as I or the authorities might have wished me to see them.

And, for the first few days, as always when the mind is plunged headlong into a new world, even though i saw facts listened to them was impressed very impressed by their outward show it still remained outward show the soul that informed the whole evaded me and for many days i saw things that i only understood later in view of subsequent knowledge when i could look back and see more clearly with the mind's eye what i before had seen with the physical yet even the first evening i saw something which though only dimly showed me a hint of the spirit of the whole i was at the headquarters of the british red cross which is what the letters h q b r c s stand for and i was being shown some very peculiar and wonderful charts they are secret charts the figures on which if a man is shown them he must never disclose and those figures when you read them bring a contraction at once of pity and of pride to the heart for in these great charts that are mapped out into squares and look exactly like temperature charts at a hospital are drawn curves like the curves that show the fever of a patient Up in jagged mountains, down into merciful valleys, goes the line, and at every point there is a number, and that number is the number of the wounded who were brought down from the trenches on such a day.

Here on these charts is a complete record, in curves, of the rate of the war.

Every peak is an offensive, every valley a comparative lull.

Sheet after sheet, all with those carefully drawn numbered curves zigzagging across them all showing the very temperature of war with this difference that on these sheets there is no normal war is abnormal and there is not a point of these charts where when the line touches it you can say it is well as i looked at these records i began to get a different vision of that tract of country called lines of communication which i had come to see this where the war's very pulse was noted day by day was the stronghold of war himself here he is nursed rested fed with food for the mouths of flesh and blood and food for the mouths of iron here the whole time night and day as ceaselessly as in the trenches the work goes on the work of strengthening his hands and so every man and woman working for that end of l of c is fighting on our side most surely something of the hugeness and the importance of it began to show itself and as regards that particular portion which i had come out to see i began to get a glimmering of that also when it was told me that of those thousands of wounded i saw marked on the charts a great proportion was convoyed entirely by women there are whole districts such as the calais district which includes many towns and stations where every ambulance running is driven by woman not only the fever rate of war is shown on these charts but just as to the seeing eye behind any temperature chart in the hospital is the whole construction of the great scheme doctors surgeons nurses food drugs money devotion everything that finds its expression in that simple sheet of paper filled in daily as a matter of routine so behind these charts of war's temperature kept at h q is the whole of the complex organization known as the british red cross and outstanding even amongst so much that is splendid are certain bands of girls behind the lines who not for a month or two but year in year out during nights and days when they have known no rest have they also had their fingers on the pulse of war End of chapter 2 Chapter 3 of The Sword of Deborah by F. Tennyson Jesse.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Marianne.

The girls do not sleep here, but in billets at the town, but they have to provide meals at any hour, and meet all the ambulance trains with food and extra comforts.

He had an inventory worth two million pounds.

And he also gave away ten million dollars in the currency at the time to the different museums and also the British Red Cross.

So did this make you think about the legacy that you want to leave behind as well?

Yeah, I've been thinking a little bit more about that.

You know, there's lots of stats on this.

You know, the British Red Cross recently did a survey, said 75% of people think the country is divided.

Uh, there's like half of us won't even talk to our partners-

Mm