For the benefit of those who couldn’t be at Sue Light’s funeral at Worthing Crematorium on Thursday 28 July here are some links which tell you more about her.
For those of us who only knew Sue through her research into nursing history the tributes from her daughter, Hannah, and from the celebrant, Simon Smith, were a most welcome part of the ceremony.
This link gives you the Order of Service.
Here are Hannah’s Memories of her Mum.
Here are the tributes by:
The celebrant at the funeral was Simon Smith of the British Humanist Association and his words can all be seen here.
The service ended with a selection of photos of Sue and here’s one of her in her army uniform.
Fortunately the information Sue so painstakingly put together is available on her websites and here they are:
- http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/ – the official war diary of Miss Maud McCarthy, Matron-in-Chief, France
- http://www.fairestforce.co.uk/ – information on all administrative and organisational aspects of the British military nursing services in France and Flanders during the Great War.
- http://greatwarnurses.blogspot.co.uk/ – Sue’s blog includes all sorts of information, book extracts and informal comment about military nurses, particularly in relation to the Great War
- https://twitter.com/scarletfinders – Sue’s Twitter page, begun in September 2010 is full of hundreds of links, retweets and comments both informative and cheeky! A real treasure trove.
Sue was interviewed on Woman’s Hour, together with Christine Hallett, back in July 2014 and you can hear that interview here. The interview, which focuses on the blue plaque for Dame Maud McCarthy – originally proposed to English Heritage by Sue, starts at 11 minutes into the programme and covers a range of topics on WW1 nursing. See Sue’s account of the blue plaque unveiling on her blog here and my brief report on Edie’s website here.
If you’d like to watch a talk by Sue, about the role of VADs, at the Thirty-first Annual General Meeting of The Western Front Association, 14 April 2012, at Mansfield College, Oxford, it’s on YouTube here.
Click here for the page which I put together soon after I heard about her death. Much of the information on there is repeated here.
It has been said many times and by a great many people but bears repeating: thank you Sue for all your work on nursing history. You are much missed.
Dick Robinson
