Torquay Town Hospital

Day two of the ‘advent calendar’ focusing on some of the historical/genealogical sources that I used in the writing of Barefoot on the Cobbles. When it came to the chapters set in Torquay, I needed a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse to befriend one of my main characters. I was able to use the excellent Red Cross website in order to choose my named character who nursed at the hospital in Torquay. This database contains details of 90,000 individuals who volunteered with the Red Cross during World War I. Normally, searches would be by name but it is also possible to search by location or hospital, which is what I needed to do in order to find those who were working in Torquay. In addition, the site provided me with valuable background information about the role of VADs. The index is also available on FindMyPast but as the Red Cross site is free to search and leads to images of the record cards, it seems sensible to start there.

And trip advisor? I hear you ask (mild gory details alert). What I was trying to write was ‘Our party of eight had six menu choices ……’. Inadvertently, one of the vowels changed, giving my post a very different meaning. I am still trying to live this down, although I am predicting that the venue will now be packed! I am blaming auto-correct. That and the fact that there was a contact lens related incident last week. On Monday, I removed a lens to find that only half had come away. I was in the car in the dark at the time and judicious poking about in my eye failed to reveal the other half of the lens. My house doesn’t do bright lights but in marginally better light and with the aid of a mirror, once home, I tried again, to no avail. The next day, with a fair amount of gunk emanating from my eye and the distinct impression that I had at least half a barrel of grit in it, it was off to minor injuries clinic. Yellow stuff was squirted in my eye and I was examined under special lights. Cotton bud-like implements rolled back my eyelids. The verdict was that there was no half lens in there but that I may have scratched my eye in an attempt to find it. Five days of ointment squirting pass with no discernible improvement. I write said trip advisor review one-eyed and shortly afterwards notice a ridge across my pupil – ah ha there is the rolled up lens that had officially been proclaimed to be no longer in my eye. I successfully remove it and instant relief!

More information about Barefoot on the Cobbles can be found here. Copies are available at various events and at all my presentations. You can order from Blue Poppy Publishing or directly from me. Kindle editions are available for those in the UK, USA, Australasia and Canada.