Skip to content

Experiences of the Great War

Home again

Lance Corporal George Ramage was eventually transported back to Britain on 14 July 1915.

He was initially sent to a Red Cross Hospital in Sussex, where he had a third and then a fourth operation on his left hand. Finally the whole hand was amputated.

On 20 September 1915 he was transferred to Sussex another hospital at Normanhurst near Battle, where he had a fifth operation to remove decayed bone.

Although this was extremely painful and unpleasant for him, Ramage still managed to find time to describe in his diary another, more pleasant, side to his hospital life.

'20th Nov.1915.
We live in a musical atmosphere. We have a band in the hospital — piano, two spoons, a sixpenny tambourine bursting at every performance, comb and tissue paper instruments, kettle drums and empty box and empty coffee tins, and a conductor whose lack of musical knowledge is fully compensated by vigorous and original use of the baton.'

Other experiences