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Experiences of the Great War

The Flying Ambulance Corps

Mairi Chisholm first worked as a dispatch rider for the Women's Emergency Corps, carrying messages through the London traffic on her motor bike.

It was while acting as a courier in this way that she was spotted by Dr Hector Munro. Munro was setting up a Flying Ambulance Corps to help the Belgians who had been caught badly unawares by the German attack of August 1914.

He quickly invited Mairi to join his team, as she describes in her 1976 interview:

'[Munro] was deeply impressed with my ability to ride through the traffic. He traced me to the Women's Emergency Corps and … said: "Would you like to go out to Flanders" and I said: "Yes, I'd love to".'

— Extract quoted by permission of the Imperial War Museum.