On day 22 of the End to End in 2019 I emerged from the Quantock Hills onto the Somerset Levels. The scenery changed from narrow winding wooded undulating lanes to the flatter paths that I would follow for the next few days. The other thing that changed was the roads as I crossed backwards and forward over the M5 on a variety of footbridges. It was therefore much noisier at times. The tow path of the Bridgewater and Taunton Canal was the first of many I used on the whole walk, and a diversion due to roadworks at Bridgewater was a bit confusing.
We passed the campsite where we had stayed on Hannah’s walk in 2012. I walked along the King’s Sedgemoor Drain and finished at Bawdrip. A friend from Twitter regularly posts walks from this area in 2020. It was all change.
Meanwhile in 2020, it’s certainly all change too, not just locally. There’s no way we could have imagined that one year later that the cities of the world would be in lock down, the countryside empty and motorways quiet. As for being prepared for the medical needs of our country; what would that take?
I’m currently reading a book about the Women’s Hospital in Paris in WW1 (there’s a review of it here https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/17/endell-street-by-wendy-moore-review-the-suffragette-surgeons)
It seems that the British government of the time initially made a decision not to provide motorised ambulances for the BEF on the grounds of cost. Horse drawn ambulances were cheaper, they thought. They were also less reliable and it also took much longer to evacuate casualties. It wasn’t until much later in the war that the hospital trains were developed. Many private citizens volunteering to help with ambulance work actually donated their own motor vehicles for the task. That is, as they say, history.
The idea that women could run a military hospital was scorned in 1914. Women just wouldn’t be up to it for so many reasons, such was the prejudice against women doctor’s at the time. Much like some sections of our current society have their prejudices against the participation of members of the the BAME community in the NHS today. And now they are putting their lives on the line.
Just before her execution in Brussels, in 1915 as a spy, Edith Cavell, a British Nurse and daughter of a Norfolk Vicar made this statement: ‘Patriotism is not enough: I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone’. No one can claim to love their country and not love her fellow humans, those who live and die for it (her statue stands in Charing Cross, London).
(photo: Wikimedia Commons)
From the remembered gospel
Jesus said to Philip: ‘Here, touch the wounds for yourself’
Wounded One, we struggle to believe so many things.
How often, our own prejudices hold us back from fully accepting our fellow humans.
You, who see all sides of the struggle, stand with all rejected ones.
Help us to cross the line, to move towards your inclusive kindom,
where justice and mercy are the hall marks we all bear.
JAL: 23.04.2020 in Longdendale.