During the vacation, students from the London School of Medicine for Women came in large numbers to work in the wards and laboratories and operating theatre. Teachers from the women’s colleges at Oxford and Cambridge and from girls’ schools gave up a month or a fortnight of their hard-earned rest to relieve the hospital orderlies. Older girls came by tens from Roedean School for girls to take up administrative or clerical work or to be general duties orderlies. Wycombe Abbey sent its contingent, and friends and younger sisters volunteered to help also. The scheme was a great success: the regular orderlies appreciated the good holiday and came back better for it, and the substitutes enjoyed the novelty of the work and surroundings, and learnt much that was useful to themselves. Sunburnt, muscular schoolgirls appeared to find great pleasure in conveying stores and linen about the hospital, and their good spirits were a delightful asset. They took an interest too, in the personnel and customs of the hospital, and were wont to carry on conversations about them in loud tones, which were very amusing to those who could not help overhearing them.
A dormitory which three Roedean girls and an Endell Street orderly were using was very close to the rooms occupied by Dr. Flora Murray and Dr. Garrett Anderson. One summer night, as the babel of voices in the residential quarters died down, the piercing conversation close at hand attracted their attention.
1st Roedean: ‘Do you like Dr. Murray?’
2nd Roedean: ‘No, I don’t think I do.’
1st Roedean: ‘Why don’t you like her?’
2nd Roedean: ‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think I like her manner.’
3rd Roedean: ‘Have you ever spoken to her?’
2nd Roedean: ‘Yes, I have, once.’
1st Roedean: ‘What does she do?’
Orderly: ‘Oh, she sits in that office.’