St. Johns Ambulance Brigade

“My husband was Councilor Frank Cardy and he was an ambulance driver during the war.”

“The Redditch Ambulance station was in the old Council yard, back of Walford Street. The Council ran the ambulance service in those days, first there was just one ambulance then the Council realised that they needed two. He had to go to Coventry and Birmingham and all sorts of places. Frank saw some dreadful sights. I always knew when a badly injured child had been involved because he would come in and go straight upstairs, he was so upset.

'Once, on the evening shift, he had to take a lady to Bath - she was a stretcher case and she was going to live with her son. There were no signposts in those days they had all been taken down, and so, of course, he got lost. He asked someone the way, this person never told him and the next things that he knew a policeman came along. The man thought he was German spy because of his Welsh accent.'' As well as working full-time at Terry's, Arthur Swain had to go fire watching one night a week and also had to attend First Aid sessions: "I had trained with St. John Ambulance before war, altogether I was in for about 6 years.

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