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September 26th 2019
Edith Speaks
Georgette Vale
When about 60 members of the Heritage Society gathered at the Fairland Hall, Georgette Vale gave a moving performance as Nurse Edith Cavell in the early hours of October 12 1915 shortly before her execution by the Germans.
With little more than a chair, a table and a crucifix, the stage was set as her cell number 23 in St. Gilles prison in Brussells. As her execution drew near Edith, who was not afraid to die, reflected on her life.
She was born on December 4 1865 in Swardeston, where her father was the Vicar. After some early education at home, then boarding school in Somerset and Kensington, where she learnt French, she became a governess. On receiving a legacy she travelled to Bavaria in 1888 and while there became interested in nursing, though at the time being a governess in Brussels.She returned to England when her father fell ill in 1895 and at the age of almost 30 she started to train as a hospital nurse at the Royal London, helping two years later when a typhoid epidemic broke out in Maidstone.
In 1907 she returned to Belgium to help set up a nurses’ training school for a Doctor Antoine Depage, but then war broke out in 1914 and the Germans invaded Belgium, where she was providing a home for two girls, Grace Jemmett and Pauline Rendall, as well as her beloved dog Jack. Her father had died in 1910 and when she came on a visit to England her mother, who by then lived in College Road, Norwich, would have loved her to stay as news broke out of the war. However, she returned to Brussels to run a Red Cross Hospital, treating wounded soldiers, including Germans.
She began sheltering allied soldiers, who hoped to escape with the aid of a network over the border to occupied Holland. Coalmines, the forest and even the big city were some favourite places for escapees to hide. Among various prisoners helped in this way were some from Norfolk, including Billy Mapes from Hethersett. German soldiers were billeted all round, but the sheltered soldiers in the nurses’ school were allowed out till 9.00pm.
Once some Irish soldiers got drunk and returned singing “It’s a long way to Tipperary”. Luckily they got back! In June 1915 when the German political police visited the nurses they were told there were no British soldiers hidden on the premises, but a road sweeper had been seen outside for days. They were being watched.
In July there were more searches and two arrests, then on August 5 Sister Wilkins and Edith were arrested and frogmarched past the nurses to St. Gilles prison. In cell 23 Edith was interrogated and had to sign a confession, which was in German. After a two-day trial the death sentence was passed and at 7.00am on October 12 1915 Edith and Philippe Baucq, another escape organizer, were shot. A German Protestant prison chaplain had seen her earlier but in her final hours before the execution an Anglian chaplain based in Brussels was allowed to visit her for prayers and Holy Communion and she told him she had used the weeks in prison for calm reflection, which was shown in letters to her cousin Eddie, who was given her prayer book.
Edith’s immortal words to the chaplain, which have never been forgotten, were: “I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no bitterness or hatred to anyone.” The performance concluded, as Edith and the chaplain had done in her cell, with Georgette leading the audience in the singing of “Abide with Me.” Edith was buried at Norwich Cathedral. The execution, along with the sinking of the Lusitania, was a big mistake by the Germans as it swayed public opinion, particularly in America.
Kevin Hurn, who was in the chair, introduced Georgette and gave the vote of thanks for what had been a convincing performance.
The next meeting of the society will be on Thursday October 24 when Jason Raper will talk about the Theatre Royal in Norwich.
For more information about Georgette's “one woman shows” about important Norfolk women in history, visit her web site at www.wymondhamwalksandtalks.co.uk/live-history/.
