Review of A Broken Nurse of the Great War. The annotated diary of Sister Mabel Crook NZANS
Wendy A. Maddocks, A Broken Nurse of the Great War. The annotated diary of Sister Mabel Crook NZANS (The author: 2024)
Wendy Maddocks has undertaken a welcome act of scholarship in transcribing the diary of Mabel Crook (1887-1974). Crook left New Zealand in 1915 to nurse casualties of the First World War and her diary runs from her departure by sea until her recording of armistice celebrations in London in 1918. The editorial work expands on the diary entries to set Crook’s service in context, of both military action and nursing careers for other New Zealand women 1914-1918.
The diary entries are chiefly taken up with Crook’s life on board ship en route to scenes of conflict and when not on duty. She recorded travel within the British Isles and more widely including in Egypt. In the process, she wrote about an extensive set of acquaintances among and beyond her fellow nurses. Crook’s subsequent experiences of ill health once she had returned to New Zealand are traced by the editor via her NZANS file and documents held at the National Army Museum.
Crook was a lively diarist who seized opportunities for socialising, recording numerous details about, for example, trips to the theatre. She made relatively little mention of personal griefs, although she made an exception for the death of Lieutenant Hugh Jickell who, like Crook, hailed from Palmerston North. This book will be of great interest to anyone researching nursing and women’s history for the early twentieth century.
-Alannah Tomkins
Available now!
This book is available in the UK for 25 pounds posted to mainland UK addresses. For all enquiries please contact Wendy Maddocks at nznursinghistory@gmail.com for full details and to make a purchase.
