Une Française Libre parmi 63714
 

Barbara Graham

Barbara Graham - son Livre ouvert !
 

JOURNEY DOWN A BLIND ALLEY by MARY BORDEN

"Barbara Graham was very nearly as important to me as Dorea, but it took me longer to know her, perhaps because I could never hear what she was saying. When she drove me, as she often did, she would keep up a steady flow of mumbling and chuckling, but for all I got out of it she might have been talking to herself. A curiously attractive creature with a careless disregard for her looks and only a spasmodic craving for soap and hot water, a bit of a gypsy, a bit of an explorer, a bit of a genius, no one could improvise in a crisis like Barbara or smear herself as beautifully with axle grease. She and Kit Tatham-Warter, who had turned from horses to motors at the outbreak of hostilities and talked of her mechanized vehicles as if they had all the tricks and habits of quadrupeds, were outstanding as drivers and mechanics. I could never decide which was the better of the two. Barbara drove with apparently careless ease. Kit, or T. W. as we called her, like a man — ^powerful, tireless and taciturn. I close my eyes and see her strong shoulders and steady head beyond the windscreen and know that whatever the state of the roads I needn't worry. I never did. Across trackless deserts, wadies deep in sand, snowbound mountain passes or unbridged torrents, these two drove their rattling, shuddering, heavy and obstreperous vehicles, undefeated and undefeatable. We shall hear more of them as we cross the Sinai and Western deserts. Of Cynthia too, whom I had first met in her Paris cradle in 1919, and Rosaleen Forbes, who joined us just in time to drive me during our nerve-racking flight across France. A couple of young thoroughbreds were Cynthia and Rosaleen — not yet twenty-one when they joined the unit — ^both darlings of the gods of a pleasant godless world, high- strung and not too strong physically, they had serenely and gaily defied their parents, waved good-by to their disgruntled admirers and were come determined to prove that they were tough. "

Laurent Laloup le mercredi 29 avril 2020 - Demander un contact

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PINEAU - Femmes en guerre 1940-1946

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Laurent Laloup le mercredi 29 avril 2020 - Demander un contact

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Hadfield-Spears Unit...

" Carolann Smith-Dorrien March 19, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I have just purchased Rachel Millet’s “Spearette” as my mother, Cynthia Toulmin as well as my Godmother Barbara Graham and their great friend Rosaleen Forbes and Kit Tatham Warner (known as KT)all served together in the Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit. I was thrilled to find them all mentioned in the book, as well as my late father, Peter Smith-Dorrien – and even me as their “small daughter”! I also met both May Spears and her husband General Louis Spears in their flat in Eaton Square, London SW1 probably around 1952.
They were a brave,feisty, humorous, inventive, utterly wonderful group of women who deserve to be remembered for their extraordinary and selfless contribution to the war effort -we shall not see their like again. The BBC broadcast a programme called Tin Hats and Silk Stockings in 1989 (I think) about some of these amazing women, including those named above. If anyone is interested I have a DVD of this which could be copied. Lest we forget. Carolann"

GR 16 P 574787 | TOULMIN ( Cynthia ) | 0000-00-00
GR 16 P 228238 | FORBES ( Rosaleen ) | 0000-00-00
GR 16 P 98102 | BURNSIDE ( Daphné ) | 0000-00-00
GR 16 P 389826 | MANN ( Annabel ) | 0000-00-00 (pour Maria ? )

Photo : L'AMBULANCE HADFIELD SPEARS OU LA DROLE D'EQUIPE Jacques Duprey

Laurent Laloup le mardi 12 mars 2019 - Demander un contact

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