Transcription from the Bexhill Observer 12th June 1915
WOUNDED SOLDIERS AT BEXHILL
Red Cross Ladies’ Great Work
The successful work which has been accomplished by the 24 Sussex Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital in Cantelupe Road, Bexhill, continues to go forward with energy. The ladies, under Miss Wilson, the Commandant, have found out the value of the training which they were wise and patriotic enough to obtain in past years; as a result of it, they are now thoroughly efficient in the performance of the great work which the nation’s needs require from them.
With the Service Battalion Hospital next door, there are 30 cases in the institution this week, but some will leave this week-end and other wounded men take their places. There are at present in the Hospital men from the Northumberland Fusiliers, 5th King’s Own Royal Lancasters, Royal Stafford Regiment, Shropshire Light Infantry, 1st Hampshire Regiment, South Staffordshire Regiment, 1st and 2nd Devons, Suffolk Regiment, King’s Royal Rifles, Warwickshire Regiment and Wilts Regiment, also an officer from the 1st Manchesters.
The Battalion Hospital is financed by the Royal Sussex Regiment Orderly Room, and the Detachment Hospital by the Red Cross. The people of Bexhill have responded generously to the Commandant’s appeal for luxuries such as tobacco and sweets for the men, but there is ample need for all the help that can be given. A collection box has been placed outside the Hospital, and in this have been deposited a great many gifts of sweets, tobacco, and so forth. And the men are very grateful and pleased to think that those who pass by remember them; in fact, it says much for the soldier’s bigness of heart that he never seems to realise that those who drop their little gifts do so with the consciousness that whatever they do can never adequately repay the brave men who have risked death and wounds in order to protect the country.
Many people in the town are doing all they can to make the lot of the men as pleasant as possible. On Wednesday they were invited to the Colonnade concert by Mr G. Tyer, who kindly reserved seats for them. Other friends call for them in motor cars, and take them out for drives.
Gifts of provisions and fruit will be very useful at the Hospital.