HUNGERFORD ARCADE AND THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF NORAH GILCHRIST

Many of you have read Stuart Miller-Osborne's wonderful real-life story, "Attics and Basements (Confessions of a Book Collector)".  Well, a new article, researched and written by Stuart will be coming to you very soon and I thought you would like a taster.  Below you will find a brief insight into how this story came about and how dedicated Stuart is in getting it right.  There is also a photograph of Norah and a postcard written by her during WWI.

As Stuart says, all of these papers and photographs came to Hungerford Arcade via a house clearance.  We were all so enthralled and fascinated by Norah, we asked Stuart if he would do an article for us to Blog for you.  

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Rita

NORAH GILCHRIST

1885 - 1966

Norah's papers came from a recent house clearance. I do not have more information which in a way makes the research and the writing of the article more exciting. In all there are some thirty items including her arm band, The letters date from 1904 to 1919. As far as I can see Norah (a Yorkshire girl) was born in 1885. and worked in a secretarial capacity in her early years. She appears to have become a nurse in 1907/8 in Leeds. She registered with the Territorial Force Nursing Service and was called up in August 1914 and requested to to be ready for service in Salonika in 1916. From the papers I can confirm she was out there in 1918 although I believe she had been in Greece for quite a while before that. She was discharged in 1919 and married a surgeon named Alexander Gilchrist in the December of 1919. I am still trying to trace them after that but I believe that Norah died in Hampstead in 1966 (Although I have yet to be certain). This will constitute the final part of my article.

Stuart Miller-Osborne