Other editions of book Elsie and Mairi Go to War: Two Extraordinary Women on the Western Front by Atkinson, Dr Diane

Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm met at a motorcycle club in Bournemouth, and when war broke out they roared off to London "to do their bit". Within a month they were in Belgium driving ambulances to take wounded soldiers from the battlefield. Frustrated by the number of men dying in the back of their vehicles, they set up their own first-aid post in the village of Pervyse, near Ypres, risking their lives to save wounded men. The only women to nurse on the front line, Elsie and Mairi were decorated with 17 medals for bravery and self-sacrifice. But returning home and adjusting to peacetime life was to prove even more challenging than the war itself.

Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm met at a motorcycle club in Bournemouth, and when war broke out they roared off to London "to do their bit". Within a month they were in Belgium driving ambulances to take wounded soldiers from the battlefield. Frustrated by the number of men dying in the back of their vehicles, they set up their own first-aid post in the village of Pervyse, near Ypres, risking their lives to save wounded men. The only women to nurse on the front line, Elsie and Mairi were decorated with 17 medals for bravery and self-sacrifice. But returning home and adjusting to peacetime life was to prove even more challenging than the war itself.

Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm met at a motorcycle club in Bournemouth, and when war broke out they roared off to London "to do their bit". Within a month they were in Belgium driving ambulances to take wounded soldiers from the battlefield. Frustrated by the number of men dying in the back of their vehicles, they set up their own first-aid post in the village of Pervyse, near Ypres, risking their lives to save wounded men. The only women to nurse on the front line, Elsie and Mairi were decorated with 17 medals for bravery and self-sacrifice. But returning home and adjusting to peacetime life was to prove even more challenging than the war itself.