This book evoked the spirit of war-time and showed how the ordinary citizen helped
in lots of ways, collecting for the Red Cross, offering to work at many different jobs.
One of the things I found most impressive was the description of the Sudan Defence
Force workshops, where there was even a man who spent his time straightening nails
for re-use! It is a book full of nostalgia, humour and sadness. I went to the Sudan
myself as a bride soon after the war, first in the South, then in Khartoum, and can
appreciate the awfulness of the climate, but the kindliness of the Sudanese stands out,
as it always did, so also does their stoicism in war, and readiness to fight on the Allies'
side. The humour shows up in the article entitled Home Cursing from the Sudan Daily
Herald - giving an account of how much (or how little) the V.A.D. knew about
medical matters!
The horrors of war are evident in the description of casualties from various battles in
Abyssinia, Eritrea and the Sudan itself, and the war in the Western Desert. Sorrow for
Helen in the death of her brother and the imprisonment of her other brother, who
mercifully survived. I was also impressed by her remarks while in Kenya about the lack
of education given to the local people and how the Indians were the ones with the
responsible jobs and the "White Highlanders" being altogether too powerful - very
prophetic! It wasn't all doom and gloom - she managed to travel round the Middle
East quite extensively and met very many interesting and influential people during
that period. All in all I enjoyed this book and found it an interesting and revealing read
about matters as they appeared at the time to someone who had no thought of future
publication.
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