Margaret Powell Welsh International Brigade Nurse

Lily "Margaret" Powell (Picture above second left) was born the daughter of a farmer at Cym Farm, Llangenny, in the Welsh Black Mountains on 26th March 1913.

She qualified as a nurse in London (living in Southwark), She joined a nursing union (I believe Thora Silverthorne's Association of Nurses, which later joined NUPE.

later she undertook midwifery training, While undertaking her training, Margaret Powell volunteered to nurse in Spain as part of the British Medical Unit organised by the Spanish Medical Aid Committee (SMAC). Which supported the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil war.

However she was advised by Leah Manning (SMAC) to finish her training first, which she did, finally arriving in Spain in early 1937

She married International Brigadier Sam Lesser (known as Sam Russell when writting for the Daily Worker) who she meet when he was on leave in Barcelona from the front and she was recovering from a broken leg

Margaret Powell was the last British International Brigade nurse to leave Spain, in January 1939, losing her passport in the chaos of the retreat into France of thousands of Republican refuges from Franco’s fascist.

At the border she was arrested by French police and taken to the refugee camp at Argeles-sur-Mer, where 70,000 refugees lived on sand dunes with no shelter and in appalling conditions. she was finally rescued by Richard Rees from a Quaker Relief team

Margaret Powell was one of the most outstanding nurses who went to Spain and was later created a Dame of the Order of loyalty to the Spanish Republic "for her valiant action as a nurse...for her faith, self-sacrifice and devotion to our wounded and to our war victims" .

A plaque was unveiled in Southwark Councils, Mayor's Parlour on 6th November 1986 to commemorate those who fought or nursed in Spain for the International Brigade, this plaque included Margaret Powell.

Bill Alexander; Constantine Augherinos; Harry Bourne; Jock Cunningham; Dr Len Crome; Margaret Powell (Nurse); Heracles Augherinos; Paul Dewhurst;Dougal Eggar; Harry Evans; Joe Fuhr; Dave Gibbons; George Hardy; Jim Hoy; Jack L Jones; Lou Kenton; John Riordan; Ted Smith.

Ann Murray after Spain nursed at Dulwich Hospital and Halcrow Verstage a young architect who was the son of London County Council surveyor for Sydenham who had been educated at Alleyn's School, Dulwich

British Nursing Journal April 1938

NOTES FROM THE ARAGON FRONT

"After spending several months in a small village on the Aragon front serving at an urgent surgical centre, the division to which we' were attached became a " shock division " moving from place to place, we, as the mobile surgical team moving with it. "We reached the end of our journey, which was high up in the Pyrenees, at midnight, and for the rest of the night we heard mules and trucks go by towards the front line—in some places less than four miles away.

Early next day we commenced making our preparations, selecting for the theatre a shed which had been used as a slaughter house (there was no other choice). At least it had the virtue of a roof, even if some of the walls were missing. Blankets were hung where the walls should have been, whilst the remaining walls were white washed and the mud scraped off the floor.

"Whilst this was in progress we sat on mattresses by the roadside and repacked our few, but so precious, drums, and some men cleared a pumpkin patch and erected two fairly large tents, cleaned a couple of sheds, and put up beds for the wounded on the uneven mud floors. So hard did we. work that by nightfall everything was ready. The theatre was as clean as it could be made, furnished with an operating table, the handbowl from the operating ambulance, to which water ran through a hosepipe from. a hand-filled tank outside the door—a small square wooden table complete with drawer; that useful drawer! A large packing case contained all- the theatre linen and spare drums (one of each) with the other drums on top.

A wooden box containing our treasured English soap serving as a stand for the lotion bowl, an old box containing all our anaesthetics, and a stool. Mails were driven into the walls to accommodate the rubber aprons, rain-coats, etc. The " wards " were fitted with a couple of boxes to serve as tables, the beds being made up only with blankets, for we had no sheets, and not many pillows.

All the afternoon and evening we heard the sound of battle, and we knew that soon our period of "idleness" would cease. The wounded began to arrive at about six o'clock in the morning, a grim contrast to the loveliness of the Pyrenees, and we started our work without doing more than struggle into our clothes and washing our hands.

In addition to being surgically responsible for our own division of over ten thousand soldiers, we were also detailed off to attend another three thousand men because their division had no surgeon.

All the wounded, many of whom had to be brought down from the mountains on mules, were first treated at the First Aid Stations, and then came on to us. Ambulance after ambulance "six abdominals and a couple of heads—all for operation." Next one : more abdominals, more heads,' compound fractures, " all for operation." And for all this, only one surgeon—Spanish—who just goes on and on, speaking only to enquire what is next;' making anxious enquiries about the state of the last case ; asking about the stock of sterile material, and above all passing never-failing words of encouragement to the wounded, even after twenty-four hours of constant work!

We had no electricity, but worked with primus lamps and candles and when all the mantles broke, just candles. Imagine if you can, a surgeon performing a laparotomy, finding and suturing a liver wound, or maybe 24 or more intestinal perforations, performing a nephrectomy, removing a spleen, all by candlelight. Meanwhile we grope around the table for instruments, thread needles, break catgut capsule all in the flickering light.

The lighting question was still more acute in the "wards." We had to strike matches to look at the patients whilst blood transfusions had to be given with the aid of a cigarette lighter. One nurse looked after the wards and we were so overcrowded that very often both tents (our offices and sleeping quarters) were filled with -wounded, either waiting for operation or evacuation.

For obvious reasons we were never able to "scrub up," nor had we enough gowns for the surgeon let alone for ourselves. The two of us who worked in the theatre looked after everything. We looked after the surgeon, threaded needles, broke catgut capsules with forceps, washed instruments, towels, etc.; packed drums and sterilised them on primus stoves—inside if it was windy, and by the road-side if it was fine. We only had two drums of everything so we were constantly sterilising. The folding of gauze was perhaps our greatest worry, but we always just managed it, folding some ourselves at odd minutes, seizing on every other person with empty hands.

During the few and far between periods when we were not operating, we cleaned the instruments and needles—in instalments because we kept them always sterile in alcohol—boiling water on a primus stove being a much too lengthy affair. We mended our too few gloves, some of them have as many as 36 patches, whilst there was the linen to be darned and rubber aprons to be patched.

We endeavoured to keep all the severe abdominal cases for at least 48 hours, but often they had to be evacuated before they were properly round from the anaesthetic to a hospital about 40 miles further down, by a road which was like a spiral staircase without walls. The conditions in which the wounded were nursed were the best we could make them. Taking into consideration the coldness of the weather, the many hours before we got them for operation and the lack of competent staff to care for them as well as the lack of means of supplying warmth such as blankets, hot-water bottles, etc., the results were very good.

Blood transfusions were given whenever possible, but we could not employ the tubes of blood because we had no refrigerator in which to store them, so the direct method was always used. There were times when it was impossible to find a donor, for everyone within reach had given as much as they could.

We were. I suppose, always in some sort of danger, but somehow when one is surrounded by danger one does not think of it, and in any case we did not have the time to worry. The only fear which haunted us was the fear that we should not have enough material with which to work. There are things which the Spanish people are able to supply us with, but there are many necessities they cannot provide. We depend on our Committee for these, and so far they have not failed us. The thought that some day they might have to stop supplies through lack of funds is too terrible to contemplate.

I can hardly say how urgently nurses are needed. When one has had to see men, young, strong and brave, a" because nobody had time to give a blood transfusion, salines, or some sort of attention which in many cases would have made all the difference, it is difficult to or rational about it. We do all that is humanly possible, more indeed than I once thought possible, but there is so very much more that could be done if only there were more of us. If you could know the Spanish people as I have come to know them, you would find the ordinary people brave and kind, fighting not because they love bloodshed as many people would have you believe, but bloodshed know that they MUST fight to save their homes and for the right to live peacefully and decently. They feel and indeed they know that the victory of the Fascist force would mean tyranny and oppression for them and for Spain.

MARGARET POWELL, S.R.N., S.CM.

Michael Walker

Ann Murray Internatinal Brigade Nurse

ANN MURRAY ANTI FASCIST AND INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE NURSE

Nurse Ann Murray was born Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1906, the daughter of a farmer. The family later moved to Perthshire.

(Ann Murray Left photo and Front Centre of photo above)

She trained as a nurse in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and after qualifying became a sister in a Nursing Home.

Ann Murray was a "staunch Communist" and when her brother (Thomas) told her of the formation of the Spanish Medical Aid Committee's (SMAC) British Medical Unit and its objective of sending the unit to aid the fight against fascism in Spain, she immediately volunteered.

(Thomas Murray became a "Commissor" in the International Brigade and her other brother George Murray also joined the the International Brigade).

She joined the SMAC relief group of nurses and ambulance drivers sent to Spain in September 1936 arriving on the 29th September 1936.

Initially she worked at the small British Medical unit hospital at Huete near Barcelona

Later the British Medical Unit became part of the 14th International Brigade, under the direction of its Medical Officer Dr Domanski Dubois, a courageous and flamboyant Pole, in January 1937.

Ann Murray worked on the International Brigades cave hospital and hospital train as part of a truly "international" medical team of seventy two, with Murray as theatre sister and Spanish surgeon Quemada. As the senior nurse Murray quite rightly placed much emphasise on training up young Spanish girls in the rudiments of nursing.

During the first attack (after her arrival) Ann Murray stated "I was on night duty and, because of this the war made a deep impression on my mind; for sick people are usually more ill at night, and our senses being more acute at night to the gruesomeness, the awful suffering of the men, especially those with abdominal wounds and hemorrhage for which one can do so little, became burnt on my mind. In those days many of the soldiers were under twenty years of age, and I shall never forget those young men with their bodies torn and their limbs smashed."........She wrote home soon after arrival stating she was "seeing war at its worst".

In an interview in late 1938 Ann Murray states "We stood on the observation platform of the hospital train talking of these twenty months of war. I glanced at the men on the stretcher-slung beds. I heard the noise of the guns breaking across the sunlit quiet of the olive fields.

"Here the work is worthwhile,' Ann Murray said. 'When you see how the Spaniards fight on, seeing only the final victory, then you feel that you must go on too. Look at that man on the first bed. He has been operated on for an abdominal wound.

We have saved him. We kept him on the train and when he was fit to talk, what do you think he said, "Shall I live?" "Yes, of course," we told him. He smiled. "I'm not finished yet," he replied. "When I am better I shall go back till we have driven the fascists out. Tell the comrades to fight on.' 'And so,' Ann said, 'With such an example from the Spanish people the least we nurses can so is to fight on too .........

I have

been long enough in Spain to have seen the changes that, in spite of the war, the Republican government has made ... 1 have seen soldiers and old grandmothers learning to react, and the little children cared for in beautiful schools. And although I have seen some of those same schools shattered by fascist bombs, still I say, "Life and work here in Republican Spain are worthwhile."

The SMAC sent out numerous political books for the British Medical Unit staff to read in between offensives. One of Ann Murray's favourite was Jack London's "Iron Heel" of which she said that it "brings out very clearly many of the dark facts and shows the methods by which many of our very successful business men reach the elevated positions in which they find themselves." According to Murray, "it is a very true book and I am all for the whole truth".

Of Ann Murray's nursing service in Spain, Winifred Bates stated that she was "a real assett to Spain and the Revolutionary movement"

Interview with Ann Murray in the British Medical Unit August 1939 carried out by Winifred Bates SMAC's nurse liaison officer based in Barcelona.

THE STORY OF ANN MURRAY.

ONE OF THE ENGLISH NURSES IN SPAIN.

Ann Murray, who comes from Perth and Edinburgh, has a long record in the fight against fascism; she has been nursing in Spain for 20 months. Coming with the first group of English who worked on the Aragon front, she has also worked in an International base hospital near Madrid, in a convalescent hospital in Catalonia for a few week in a big Spanish hospital in Barcelona, and is now working on an ambulance train at the front.

(Ann Murray picture Left on Left)

The train is an excellent hospital, and its big staff of 72 Persons work happily together. There are three women, two of them Spanish nurses, and Ann Murray, who is the theatre sister to the Spanish surgeon, Dr. Quemada. There are three coaches fitted up as wards with stretchers slung in two tiers on either side, two operating-rooms and staff- rooms for the doctors and nurses, dining-rooms and kitchens. When I visited them during the attack they were working very hard, doing 24-hour stretches, so that the wounded were never kept waiting for attention longer than necessary.

As soon as Dr. Quemada had finished operating, men who could be moved were put on a fast-moving rail coach and taken to base towns, where they were removed to the hospitals by ambulances. They are a completely mobile unit, and can move up and down the front to wherever an attack might be in a very short time.

One day when there was little to do they watched an air battle not far off. It was good,” they said, “to see our planes go up and chase the fascists away.” I thought of the little dead children I had seen carried out of the ruins in Barcelona. It is good,” I agreed.

Ann Murray had spent the first 10 months of the war on the Aragon