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4 Not a woman, but a FANY Working for the British in Calais 1916 One day during her travels to inspect the various FANY projects in the area around Calais, Grace McDougall tried to persuade the Railway Transport Office to give her a service order to travel by one of the trains reserved for troops. On being told no woman was ever allowed on such troop trains, McDougall exclaimed she ‘wasn’t a woman but a FANY!’ and proceeded to board amidst the cheers of the men.1 On another occasion she defied a similar ban barring women from troop ships and pretended to command a
Postscript Grace McDougall’s memoir ‘Five Years with the Allies’ ends with the following reflection: There is a statue in Calais, well known to FANYs, called ‘The Brave Boys of Calais’, and if ever a millionaire has money to chuck about he could do worse than put up a statue in Calais, with a FANY in khaki on top and a motor ambulance in bas-relief, and engrave it with these names, as the khaki girls of Calais!1 At this transitional historical moment when the ‘khaki girls’ were demobilized, the future for the Corps was somewhat uncertain. They did not receive
Women of War is an examination of gender modernity using the world’s longest established women’s military organisation, the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, as a case study. Formed in 1907 and still active today, the Corps was the first to adopt khaki uniform, prepare for war service, staff a regimental first aid post near the front line and drive officially for the British army in France. It was the only British unit whose members were sworn in as soldiers of the Belgian army, and it was the most decorated women’s corps of the First World War. Bringing both public and personal representations into dialogue through an analysis of newspaper articles, ephemera, memoirs, diaries, letters, interviews, photographs and poetry, this book sits at the crossroads of British, social, gender and women’s history, drawing upon the diverse fields of military history, animal studies, trans studies, dress history, sociology of the professions, nursing history and transport history. It reconstructs the organisation’s formation, its adoption of martial clothing, increased professionalisation, and wartime activities of first aid and driving, focusing specifically upon the significance of gender modernity. While the FANY embodied the New Woman, challenging the limits of convention and pushing back the boundaries of the behavour, dress and role considered appropriate for women, the book argues that the Corps was simultaneously deeply conservative, upholding imperial, unionist and antifeminist values. That it was a complex mix of progressive and conservative elements, both conformist and reformist, gets to the heart of the fascinating complexity surrounding the organisation.
7 Esprit de corps FANY service after the Armistice 1918–19 A central aspect of the motivation to work under gruelling conditions was the thought, however fleeting, that life at some point would return to ‘normal’ and those things once taken for granted would soon be enjoyed again. However, many FANY found that when this actually happened, their lives had been so changed in the process that things would never quite be ‘normal’ again. When the Armistice was declared and the FANY really could look forward to enjoying past pleasures knowing their service in France
3 Band of Hope FANY with the Belgians at Lamarck Hospital 1914–15 Out of the grey mists of the past rise shadowy forms that come and go – some have deeper tints and stronger outlines than others; all are shrouded in silence. These are the women who formed what we called in jest ‘The Band of Hope’. For it was no light task to take from safety to a troubled land those who had not already been there. So it was that money and friends and love itself proved no bar, and away I went light-hearted, taking with me willingly the responsibility of eleven other beings
5 Progression is our watchword The Belgian convoy and Port à Binson Priory Hospital 1917 During 1917, as the war dragged on and women’s role in this masculine space became increasingly integrated and essential, the FANY saw organizational expansion and consolidation. Grace McDougall was the driving force behind the FANY momentum, fired as she was with personal ambition and a keen desire to maintain organizational growth. She had written an article for the FANY Gazette back in the summer of 1916 summarizing their work to date and emphasizing the necessity for them
6 Petticoat warriors The French units and the convoy at St Omer 1917–18 The winter of 1917–18, like the one before it, was one of the coldest on record and sorely tried the FANY knack for coping with whatever came their way. Doris Russell Allen, newly promoted Commanding Officer of the French FANY units, reported on these horrendous conditions. The roads were cut up and pitted with shells and the never-ending mud had frozen into huge, often impassable ruts. However she reported that true to their motto, the drivers were not deterred, and, indeed, one ingenious
place – she belonged in the drawing room at Hampstead or in an evening gown, flirting and teasing some helpless man … Izzie was dressed in some kind of uniform beneath a dirty apron, blood smeared across one cheek, carrying something foul in an enamel pail. 1 Kate Atkinson’s novel A God in Ruins explicitly confronts the paradox of an upper-class woman who is jettisoned into unforgiving situations. Izzy, a member of the FANY, substitutes her elegant ballgowns, London salon and playful coquettish manner for a khaki uniform, French hospital and nursing expertise
indicative of just one of the ways that uniformed FANYs were perceived by the general public to be embodying a modern mode of femininity. 2 Early FANYs were openly ridiculed and subjected to mocking gibes and verbal rebukes. The hostile reaction was undoubtedly because they were the first women’s organisation to wear military uniform: the public had never before seen groups of women dressed in clothing tagged as male. Wearing their boldly coloured uniforms in the public domain was an audacious, visible statement and they were to be scrutinised for what their clothing
title, ‘War Girls’, I have borrowed for the title of this book) encourages us to think about the ways this war subverted existing gender arrangements and encouraged personal and social autonomy for women at the very same time that it relied on traditional tropes of gender to stabilize the war effort and contain women’s independence. In this book I focus on these wartime renegotiations of gender and explore the everyday lives of a group of British women volunteers named the FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry)2 who found themselves, as did many young middle- and upper