Another good attendance at the Into Newcastle cafe with plenty to discuss and catch up with members we have not seen for a while. We started off with a discussion on the various films that have been made on location here in the North East. This followed on from our Cinema project from last month. Val produced a list of some of the films that had locations here, can you think of any more?
Becket, The Railway Man, Dessy(Bollywood movie), I Daniel Blake, One night in Turin, Purely Better, The Likely Lads Film, Road(1987), Stormy Monday (1988) Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (1991), Alien 3 (1992), Robinson in Space(1997) Elizabeth (1995), The One and Only (2002), Atonement (2007), We are Not Like Them (2013), Bypass (2014), Transformers (2016), Lady Macbeth (2016).
Get Carter
The Little Book of Newcastle by J Sadler and R Serdiville mentions; Get Carter as the most iconic movie to be made in and around Newcastle, released on 10 March 1971. Widely regarded as the best UK gangster movie of all time. The choice of locations was determined by director Mike Hodges and the entire production went from concept to screen in just eight months with 40 days' intensive filming on Tyneside. Not many people will forget Trinity Centre multi-storey car park in Gateshead, now home to one of the largest Tesco stores in the country where Alf Roberts (Brian Mosley) in Coronation Street meets his demise.
TyneMouth Volunteer Life Brigade Watch House
Irean mentioned a trip she had to the Museum and suggested that we meet up in the near future to take a conducted tour more news next month.
Shelagh saw a very interesting historic panel in St James and St Basils Church at Fenham:
https://www.jamesbasilfenham.org.uk/ read below the almost untold storey of Ruth Nicholson:
Ruth Nicholson and the Scottish Women’s Hospital
https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/speccoll/2016/10/28/people-dont-know-about-them/
https://rcogheritage.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/pioneers-ruth-nicholson-frcog-1931/
Ruth Nicholson was born in 1884 the eldest child of the Rev Canon Ralph Nicholson and Margret Nicholson. Ralph was for some years curate and later vicar of St Stephens in Elswick. Margaret a forward-thinking woman, encouraged not only her son but her daughters to acquire professional qualifications and Ruth decided at an early age to train as a doctor. Ruth graduated from Durham University in 1909 the only woman in her year at Newcastle School of Medicine.
At the outbreak of war, Ruth joined a volunteer medical unit. However, standing on the platform at London’s Victoria Station about to depart she experienced the humiliation of being rejected by the doctor in charge who refused to have a woman on his staff. Undated Ruth immediately contacted Dr Elsie Inglis, the founder of the Scottish Woman’s Hospitals, a pre-war colleague whose offer of a 100-bed hospital run by women was turned down by the war Office; My good lady go home and sit still she was told.
Fortunately, the French were more welcoming and offered Dr Inglis the beautiful 13th Century Abbey of Royaumont, 30 kms north of Paris. Miss Frances Ivens was posted there as medical chief. Ruth Nicholson served as a surgeon and second in command at Royaumont from its opening in January 1915 until its closure in 1919.
The hospital at the Abbey of Royaumont
The Abby was bitter cold with no heating or lighting or lifts and the plumbing was medieval. It was also filthy having been uninhabited or used as stables for over a decade. With additional funding from the Women’s Suffrage movement Miss Ivens established what became the largest continuously operating voluntary hospital in France, initially with 100 beds and later, at the requests of the French military, it was expanded to 500 beds. The hospital was entirely run by women: surgeons physicians, scientists, nurses’ orderlies’ administrators, the Chronicler (who kept the records), ambulance drivers and mechanics, all women and many of them unpaid volunteers.
The only exceptions were two male patients who returned to help; one a skilled mechanic the other a celebrity chef who was an inspired cook with a gift for finding food in difficult circumstances. Laurence Binyon the pot also visited Royaumont several times and wrote enthusiastically of its work.
The hospital was very close to the front line and at peak times it was admitting as many as seventy patients a day, many suffering from new types of wounds caused by machine gun fire and shrapnel, one ward had over 100 beds and linen was so short new patients were often put in old sheets. A total of 10,861 patients were treated as inpatients, of whom 8,752 were soldiers manly French and French Colonials. A few British and American troops and some German prisoner of war were also admitted, together with 1,537 civilians, most of them out-patients. The death rate for the injured servicemen was 1.82%, a tribute to the skill of the surgeons and nurses when medical science had so little to offer.
The hospital was heavily in the offensives of 1915, the Somme battles of 1916 and the final struggle of 1918 when the casualty clearing station was overrun. Throughout this time Ruth Nicholson worked as a surgeon, in fact she and Miss Ivens were the only doctors to stay for the entire war. Alison Nicholson Ruth’s younger sister, served at Royaumont as a volunteer auxiliary nurse from 1916. When the Armistice was declared on the 11th November 1918, Miss Ivens and Ruth were chaired around the hospital to the strains of the Marseilles and God save the King and cheers from patients and staff alike.
After the War
The French army were prompt and generous with its decorations for the staff a Royaumont. Ruth and twenty-two of her colleagues received the Croix de Guerre and Miss Ivens was also awarded the Legion d’Honnur, the first foreign woman to receive this medal in France. After the war Ruth specialised in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. She gained a consultant post in Liverpool and later succeeded Francis Ivens in her post at Liverpool University. She developed a reputation for inspiring confidence in her patients and was known for her sympathy and dedication. Furthermore, and perhaps unusually, she was a favourite with the nurses.
Ruth Nicholson become one of the first Fellows of the new College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the first woman President of the North of England Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
After the war and until the 1960’s, the Royaumont women met for regular reunions. The storey of the Scottish Women’s Hospital at Royaumont was published in 1977. Ruth Nicholson died in 1963, having been nursed, at the end by one of the Royaumont Sisters.
Ruth Nicholson
Born 02-Dec-1884
Died 18-Jun-1963
Residence: 32 Kenilworth Rd, Newcastle upon Tyne (1911 Census)
Education: Durham University
Shelagh adds’ I hope the doctor who refused Ruth to have her on his staff, was alive to see her remarkable achievements.'
I can only add that dinosaurs still roam the corridors of institutions with their intolerance and inability to see equality and diversity in women today.
