Elsie and Mairi Go to War: Two Extraordinary Women on the
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Atkinson, Diane, PUBLISHER: Pegasus Books, When they met at a moong>toong>rcycle club in , Elsie Knocker was a thirty year-old moong>toong>rcycling divorcee dressed in bottle-green Dunhill leathers, ong>andong> Mairi Chisholm was a brilliant eighteen-year old mechanic, living at home borrowing ong>toong>ols from her brother. Little did they know, theirs was ong>toong> become one of the most extraordinary song>toong>ries of World War I. In , they roared off ong>toong> London 'ong>toong> do their bit, ' ong>andong> within a month they were in the thick of things in Belgium driving ambulances ong>toong> distant military hospitals. Frustrated by the number of men dying of shock in the back of their vehicles, they set up their own first-aid post on the front line in the village of Pervyse, near Ypres, risking their lives working under sniper fire ong>andong> heavy bombardment for months at a time. As news of their courage ong>andong> expertise spread, the 'Angels of Pervyse' became celebrities, visited by journalists ong>andong> phoong>toong>graphers as well as royals ong>andong> VIPs. glamorous ong>andong> influential, they were having the time of their lives, ong>andong> for four years Elsie ong>andong> Mairi ong>andong> stayed in Pervyse until they were nearly killed by arsenic gas in the spring of . But returning home ong>andong> adjusting ong>toong> peacetime life-ong>andong> the role of women in British society-was ong>toong> prove more challenging than even the war itself.