The recreation room was a moving sight when it was packed to its uttermost by an eager and happy audience. On one side of the gangway were men in beds, and ranks of wheel-chairs with their more convalescent occupants; on the other, a solid mass of men in blue were crowded on chairs, window-sills or tables, wherever a corner could be found; and at the back, a few members of the staff found standing room. The audience listened with rapt attention to the singing of Mr. Courtice Pounds, Miss Jean Sterling MacKinlay and Miss Grainger Kerr; or followed the performances of Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, Mr. H. B. Irving, Miss Ellis Jeffreys, Mr. Nigel Playfair and Miss Helen Haye with great delight. The laughter and cheers which greeted each item marked their appreciation and pleasure. The programmes were never long, so that patients who were less well could be included in the fun, and many of them tried to get better in time for the entertainments. More than a thousand artistes visited the hospital each year, and between May 1915 and May 1919 five hundred and eleven entertainments were held. During these years the Committee arranged two hundred and sixty concerts; seventy ward concerts; ninety-five orchestras; fifty-two plays; four pantomimes; and thirty sing-songs.
The King and Queen gave a party to wounded soldiers at Buckingham Palace, to which a number of Endell Street patients were invited. There was a sumptuous tea, followed by a wonderful variety entertainment—an all-star show of the very best. When the men returned, having thoroughly enjoyed themselves, one of them admitted:
‘Yes, they did us very well; but of course we had seen all the turns before on our own stage.’
The hospital owed a great deal to the many artistes who so generously came again and again to amuse and interest the patients.
In the wards reserved for serious cases there were always men whose beds could not be moved to the recreation room, and these found pleasure and amusement through the electrophone installed beside their beds. Every evening men who were still suffering greatly forgot their pain for a time as they lay with the receivers fastened over their ears, listening to ‘The Bing Boys’ or other plays. It was delightful to see them laughing, and often they fell asleep and were unaware of the night-nurse when she came round and removed the apparatus from their heads. New-comers were always eager to share in this treat, and a man who had just arrived and was having an operation done in the afternoon made his neighbours in the ward promise to rouse him when the time came for ‘The Bing Boys.’ His surgeon, visiting the ward in the evening, was surprised to find him propped up in bed, with a smile on his face and the receiver on his head.
But daily occupations and interests had to be provided for those who were confined to the hospital for long periods, and to supply this want basket-weaving, knitting, rug-making and needlework were introduced. Lady Anderson and a small committee of ladies organised the needlework and found that the embroidery done by the men was quite unexpectedly good. About seven thousand regimental badges were worked, but those who had any aptitude were not restricted to this kind of sewing only. Miss Rosamond S. Wigram produced designs copied from old pieces of needlework or from pictures, and taught the men how to do needlework pictures. Some who had never sewed before developed great skill, and worked baskets of flowers in excellent shading, or gardens full of colour, and having learnt to make French knots, they produced life-like woolly lambs and rabbits. The workers became happily absorbed in their work, and would take up their sewing frames as soon as it was light and only lay them aside when it grew dark. Each year a sale of the work done for the committee was held, at which some of the pictures fetched a price of five and seven guineas each.
IN THE LIBRARY
(Photo, Topical Press)