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Experiences of the Great War

The Nurse

In 1914 an 18-year-old girl called Mairi Chisholm set out for London on her motor bike to see how she could help the war effort.

She teamed up with a nurse called Elsie Knocker, who shared her spirit of adventure, and the pair of them went on to spend an incredible four years treating the wounded on the front line. They were the only women to live and work in the Belgian front-line trenches during the First World War.

The Chisholm Papers in the National Library of Scotland help us to see the war through Mairi's eyes. More on Mairi Chisholm