The madonnas of Pervyse
To the Belgian soldiers, Mairi Chisholm and Elsie Knocker were the 'madonnas of Pervyse'.
In a sense, the soldiers treated the women as if they were living saints, as Mairi was to explain when she was interviewed in 1976:
'We were dealing with a Catholic country and they called us 'deux madones de Pervyse'. We had, funnily enough, over the entrance to the dug-out … a little shrine thing, you see, and that's what the soldiers called us: 'the two madonnas of Pervyse'. And they felt if they fell into our hands, you see, they had every possible chance.'
— Extract quoted by permission of the Imperial War Museum.
