Recruitment

Recruitment

It had been a long and busy night in Charing Cross Hospital and the duty matron, Kim Jollands, was exhausted and looking forward to some sleep and two days of rest. Kim was a slim woman with glasses and an impish sense of humour when her mood allowed. She was also half French with her father being French but moved to the UK before the last war. It was September 1940 and the German Luftwaffe had begun what was to become known as the Blitz. Kim had been on duty for the past 5 nights and every single one had been as hard and as busy as any she had experienced in 10 years of nursing. London was taking a pounding, but like everyone else, she just carried on the best she could.

Kim walked to her office do some paperwork before returning to her flat not far from the hospital. As she sat down to start the paperwork, there was a knock on her door, ‘Come in,’ she said tiredly. A porter entered with an envelope in his hand, ‘Sorry to disturb you Matron, but a telegram has just come for you.’

‘Thank you, Bert,’

‘I hope it is isn’t bad news,’ said Bert. They all knew that Kim’s husband was a professional soldier serving in North Africa. Kim was popular in the hospital despite her strict reputation. She also had a 4-year-old son who had been evacuated to Hampshire. Kim missed both but knew the separation was unavoidable.

‘I don’t think it is Bert and once again thank you,’ she replied. She opened the envelope with some trepidation and to her surprise, she found it was from the Ministry of Economic Warfare asking her to report to their offices on Regent Street the next day at 3pm. She was now confused as she had barely heard of the Ministry of Economic Warfare and wondered why they wanted to speak to her as she hadn’t written to them for any reason.

She turned her attention to the other paperwork in her in-tray and one document announced that the whole hospital would be moving Chaulden House, Boxmoor in Hertfordshire due to the bombing which was daily and nightly. ‘That would take some doing,’ she thought. It took her another thirty minutes to complete the paperwork. She left her office and walked the mile to her flat. When she got in she had some food, she couldn’t really call it breakfast after a night shift, before having a bath before crawling into bed. She was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow at 10am. Another twenty one hour day. But that was wartime nursing in a busy London hospital.

She woke up twenty hours later feeling stiff and with a headache but after her morning coffee she felt better and set about preparing her breakfast. Since it was her first day off after a run of night shifts, she decided to have bacon and egg. With her breakfast consumed and cleared away, her mind returned to the telegram she had received the day before and wondered what it could be about. As she sorted out an outfit for what she presumed to be an interview of some sort, her mind worked overtime wondering what it was about. But as she was to find out, she didn’t even come close to the reason why she had been summoned.

By lunchtime, she was ready and decided to make an early start to get to Regent Street in case of air raids and to get some lunch. She stopped at a café not far from Charing Cross tube station for a sandwich and a cup of tea. Before she continued her journey she checked her makeup or war paint as her husband Vic called it. She paid her bill and walked into the tube to catch her train.

Whilst on the train her brain still tried to work out why she had been sent for, and still she couldn’t work it out and it was driving her crazy. She had nothing to do with any sort of economics as a profession as she had started nursing as soon as she left school in 1930. She excelled at the job which is why she had risen through the ranks quickly becoming one of the youngest matrons in England at the age of 26. She had started at her local hospital, before being headhunted by Charing Cross as an Accident and Emergency nurse. Just after she started at Charing Cross she met a young lieutenant in the Royal Regiment of Artillery named Viv Jollands and before long the couple was married and Kim expecting her first child. She carried on working until she was seven months pregnant and gave birth to her son Sean on 14^th August 1936. With her parents living in London, her father Albert Devereux working for Supermarine in the Air Ministry, she soon returned to work as her mother, Edith looked after the young Sean whilst Kim was at work and Vic away with his regiment. Vic’s parents had been killed in a car accident before the war.

In June 1937 she was promoted to matron and was one of the three matrons in charge of the accident and emergency department. Then in 1939, the war started and immediately her parents suggested that they evacuate to Hampshire so that Sean would be safe from any bombing. Vic and Kim agreed and visited their son when they could. In May 1940, the department saw a lot of wounded men from the evacuation of Dunkerque. Some were French and as a French speaker, Kim treated them. It helped to have someone who could speak French to comfort them as they were treated. Quite a few French soldiers commented on the pretty French nurse who treated them at Charing Cross.

As the tube train pulled into Oxford Circus station she shook herself from her thoughts and looked at the telegram for the address she had to go to. No 90 Regent Street. She knew it wasn’t far and in Soho. She checked her watch and saw she was 90 minutes early so she went to a café for a cup of tea to while away the time. She was to meet a Mr Potter. As she drank her tea, again her mind wondered what this was about, and it was starting to worry her. What had she done? Was she in trouble? She was almost certain she was not, but the human brain always thinks the worst and Kim’s was no exception.

She looked at her watch and saw she had time for another cup of tea and a Chelsea bun and this time she picked up a newspaper to read and catch up on the news which was mixed. It said the RAF were holding back the Luftwaffe in the daily raids but the losses at sea were mounting. The new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who took over in May seems to be the cement that was holding the nation together in these dark times with his moral boosting speeches and anti-Nazi stance. She had another glance at her watch and saw it was a quarter to two.

She paid for the tea and cake and made her way to 90 Regent Street. She saw it was a shop that had been boarded up, but she pushed on the door and walked in. There was a young receptionist behind a grubby desk who looked up as Kim entered. ‘Mrs Jollands?’

‘That’s right.’

‘If you go up the stairs at the rear and Mr Potter is waiting for you behind the first door on your right.’

‘Thank you,’ responded Kim and followed the girl’s instructions. She knocked on the door and heard a masculine ‘Enter.’

Kim took a deep breath and opened the door. She saw an average looking man with dark hair that seemed at odds with his voice, seated behind a desk that was even more grubby than the one downstairs. ‘Mrs Jollands? He asked.

‘Yes sir,’ she replied.

‘Please sit down.’ Potter indicated at the chair opposite him. Kim sat and looked at him nervously. ‘Please relax. I suppose you are wondering why you have been asked here today?’

‘I am, Sir.’

‘Well, to put it bluntly, I am here to offer you a job. Yes, I know you have a job and an important one, but this will be even more important. It is the fact that you are half French and speak French like a native that is attractive to us.’

Kim looked stunned at what Potter said. ‘Sir I don’t know what to say. Only yesterday we were told that the hospital was moving, lock, stock and barrel and for me, that means moving to be near the hospital.’

‘We know about that. I had better come clean. My name isn’t ‘Potter’, but Captain Selwyn Jepson and I work for a very secret department within the Ministry of Economic Warfare. The job we are offering does come under the heading of ‘hazardous work.’ I can’t say anymore unless you accept it. I know it is a lot to ask for anyone to accept a job without knowing what it is, especially a married woman with a young son.

‘We have already done a thorough background check on you due to the nature of this work and you have passed that check otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here. We really need people like you with your skills. We know that you were good at chemistry when you were at school and liked making things that went bang. Now you could put that enjoyment to use in the service of this country. Now, what do you say?’

Kim was silent for a minute or two thinking about what Jepson had said and his knowledge of her making explosives during chemistry lessons at school. She was intrigued and excited about this offer. She knew that if she accepted she would leave a job she had loved and leaving colleagues shorthanded at a desperate time. But danger always attracted her, hence the explosives experiments which got her suspended a couple of times. But she stilled smiled at the memory of blowing the door of the chemistry lab off with her homemade explosive. She knew she had to make a decision and quickly. She thought of Vic and Sean and knew that some sacrifices would have to made so that the world could be free or people like the Nazi’s.

She was also working out what the job could be. With her knowledge of French, the fact that the job would be dangerous and the fact her explosives experiments was mentioned made her think it was some sort work in France. She took another deep breath, ‘Sir, it is a very difficult decision to make without knowing what the job is. I think it is some sort of undercover work in France and causing major headaches for the enemy. I think I will accept your offer if it means bringing this war to an earlier end.’

‘Thank you. I can confirm that you hunch was right, and we will train you thoroughly for this job. But it is still not a guarantee that you will pass but no matter what there will work for you in the department which is Section F of the Special Operation Executive. We will train you as a saboteur and refresh your memory on making homemade explosives. We already have your commander in training, and she is progressing rather well.

‘Don’t worry about the hospital, we will sort that out for you. Tomorrow if you can report to 64 Baker Street and we will get you signed on officially and you can meet the CO and his staff.’

‘Thank you, sir and I will be there at what time?’

‘Say ten o’clock tomorrow morning?’

‘OK sir.’

‘I think that concludes today’s business. Thank you Mrs Jollands for helping us and your country.

As Kim made her way home her mind was racing even more than it was on the way to the interview. What was she going to tell her family? Would she enjoy the new work? Would she survive? These were all questions that would be answered in the coming days, months and years.