Florence Campbell Deacon

On August 17 (I think) we left from Halifax on the S.S. Bayano (100 passengers) for Britain in a large convoy.

We had arrived in Halifax by train. I had never slept on a train before and had never been east of Montreal, so the two days train trip was quite an adventure.

We were put in the Nova Scotian and were not permitted to go out alone. There were twelve Red Cross Corps. girls, volunteers, who had already worked the requisite 200 hours (I think that's correct) for whatever division we had joined, food, administration, transport or volunteers aid. We worked proudly in our khaki uniforms.

When we were taken from the hotel to the Pier and saw our tiny ship down at the dock we were aghast, it didn't appear large enough! There was a compliment of 1000 passengers some of whom were children returning to their homes in England. Some of us were asked to assist in whatever what we could with these children.

Most of the Canadian Red Cross Corps. girls were just 21 (the required age to go overseas) some of course, in command, were older. The trip in the convoy was 17 days of glorious weather, landing in Bristol.