EDU_The_Ballard_of_Elsie_Inglis

The Ballad of Elsie Inglis
By Liz Lochhead, Scots Makar
1.
1864. Elsie Maud Inglis, in India
Was born, seventh child, favourite daughter
Of a most enlightened father --
Despite his being a servant of the Empire,
Of the Raj and Queen Victoria.
Wee Elsie wanted to cure the whole wide world.
Blotches big and red as poppies
Were the pockmarks and the mock-measles
That she painted on her dollies.
Daily she washed off the paint
From the dollies’ faces,
Daily she disinfected the dollies
In all the dollies wounded places.
Daily she tended to her dollies,
Daily the dollies got better.
Elsie’s (gentle) mother and Elsie’s (just) father
Had nothing but kisses and yeses
When Elsie told them: ‘I am going to be a doctor’.
1886. Grown-up, back in Scotland,
Soon as her medical training began
Elsie knew she had it in her to be a surgeon

As good as any man.
And many a suffering woman
Would most certainly prefer
(If it came to baring her all beneath th’ surgeon’s knife)
Said knife be wielded by her.
They had to thole tyrannical husbands --
His property, in law -- that was a wife.
He’d the right to refuse her an operation --
Even one to save her life.
Surely everyone saw what Elsie saw ?
‘Twould be only common decency
To have female specialists in obstetrics,
Paediatrics and gynaecology?
1894. Doctor Elsie Inglis founded in Edinburgh
A Women’s Hospital for the Poor.
1914. Somebody shot somebody in Sarajevo
And the whole bloody world was at war.
1914. Britain Needs You! and
Young, green, lads were queueing up to enlist.
Elsie Inglis saw the necessity
For the doctor she was, for the suffragist.
For patriotic Elsie knew she could muster
All-female medical teams who would want

Just as if they were fighting soldiers,
To be risking their lives at the front.
Then the injustice of further denying women the vote
Would be more than crystal clear.
So off to the Castle, to the RAMC,
Went Elsie to volunteer.
The man from the War Office smiled at Elsie
My good lady, go home and sit still.
Did this make Elsie Inglis angry?
If it did, it was grist to her mill
For Elsie smiled back at the man, said nothing.
She really did not want to be rude.
Thought: If my government doesn’t want Women’s Field Hospitals
Surely some other government would?
2.
My good lady, go home and sit still.
But she did not, would not, could not, could she, take no for an
answer?
She was almost fifty years old already, already ill
(Though she kept this close to her chest) with the cancer
She, and only in her last days, swearing her to secrecy,
Confided to Mary, that long-serving hospital-cook she trusted,
She had a…’certain malignancy
She was sure she’d survive and not be bested
By.’-- Oh, the pain it was truly chronic,

It really gave her what for,
And none of her nice nieces would ever get to ask her
‘Aunt Elsie, what did you do in the war?’
But all this was 1917
And after three long years of that terrible War
Throughout which Elsie’d always known
Exactly what she was fighting
And what she was fighting for.
Her father’s daughter --
She’d never minded this, just taken it for the compliment
She knew whoever had come out with it
Certainly meant it to be.
But, Edinburgh Castle, the War Office,
1914, that buffoon in charge of the RAMC...!
Elsie was not his, nor what he would call
Either a lady or good.
That she’d have to get round this damnable obstacle
Elsie well understood…