This typist wants to draw your attention to her new blog: Ambulance-Girl Blitz Blog It is a fictionalized account of the first Blitz on London, 1940-41. The blog explores the devastating aerial bombardments through the eyes of a young ambulance auxiliary who was based on the ground in Dolphin Square, which served as the ambulance depot for Pimlico, 1939-45.
The characters are made up, but the horrific events are historically accurate, based on archival research, Mass Observation documents and interviews with surviving members of the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service (LAAS). Many details were found in Angela Raby's The Forgotten Service, the only book detailing the activities of the LAAS. The painting above is featured on the cover of that book.
The experiences of these ambulance auxiliaries, while different in time, place and military context, have to be similar to those of ambulance personnel serving in cities such as Baghdad and Kandahar. The Ambulance-Girl Blitz blog is part of a manuscript which placed as a finalist in the HR Percy Award for Unpublished Novel in the Atlantic Writers Competition, 2004.
This typist will post bite-sized exerpts twice weekly and provide links from this blog.
