This is a video unlike any you ve ever seen on this channel, Scotland History Tours.
I NEVER make videos about people who are specifically English
but today... ...now, this won t become a pattern
So If you re interested in the people places and events in Scottish history
then click the subscribe button at the bottom right of the screen
In the meantime, let me tell you an English woman s story.
A number of English folk have asked me to cover subjects relevant to English history,
and I ve always said: No. Now that s not out of any ill feeling,
in spite of what some folks who misunderstand me and the channel might think.
England is big enough to have its own historical story tellers.
They don t need my wee YouTube channel. They have the BBC for goodness sake.
...but as I was walking through this beautiful haven of parkland in the middle of Melbourne,
which feels to me to be a big impersonal and less interesting Australian city,
I was touched by a story that I d never heard.
Today is ANZAC day, and this morning there
would have been a dawn service across at the shrine of remembrance over there...
but when I walked this way and on through the botanic gardens the other day
it was this statue that interested me. It s not that often you see a statue of a woman.
Our capital in Edinburgh has a shameful lack of statues to women...
Look for them next time you re there. Plus, this seems like a military
memorial area..., so that s unusual.
Almost as unusual as me talking about English heroes
but Edith Cavell here was born in, Norfolk.
I d never heard of her, but when I saw her statue and found out about her,
I thought other ignorant folk like me should know her story.
She was the daughter of an English rector, and went off to work as a governess in Belgium,
before she came back and trained as a nurse in London.
She worked in various hospitals around England before being offered a position
as Matron in Belgium's first training hospital for nurses in Brussels...
That s why she s held up as the founder of modern nursing education in Belgium.
The Great War broke out when she was at home in Norfolk visiting her mum in 1914,
and when she heard of the threat to Belgium, she thought it was her duty to head back to Brussels.
Her nursing school in Brussels became a Red Cross hospital,
treating casualties from both sides, as well as civilians.
Not long into the war, Edith was asked to help two wounded
British soldiers trapped behind German lines. She treated the men in her hospital and then
arranged to have them smuggled out of Belgium into the neutral Netherlands, thence on to Britain.
Very quickly, she became part of a network that sheltered and
arranged the escape of Allied soldiers and Belgians who might be conscripted for
German military service. Over an 11 month period
she helped about 200 British, French and Belgian soldiers
sheltering them in the hospital and arranging guides to take them to the border.
But on 5 August 1915, she was arrested.
She was put in solitary confinement in Brussels. Two months later she, and 34 others, were tried
at court martial and found guilty.
She was shot by a firing squad on 12 October 1915.
Of those tried five were sentenced to death. Only two of those death sentences
were carried out... one was the nurse who had
helped wounded from all sides in a gruesome conflict,
and openly confessed to her humanitarian activities to repatriate soldiers.
Two things she said before her death are worth repeating here.
Her final words to the German, Lutheran prison chaplain were,
"...to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe,
and that I am glad to die for my country." The night before she died she said:
Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough,
I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone."
These words are inscribed on her statue here.
After the war, her body was exhumed and returned to Britain.
A memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, and she was reburied in Norwich Cathedral.
I know this isn t a Scottish story, but I think Edith Cavell deserves our remembrance.
I m glad I came across her monument.
There s a video about a specifically Scottish hero coming up on screen now.