Boyhood memories of time spent with a wartime nurse were revived for a Budock man when he revisited Penryn Museum after a break of several years.
Stephen Jones popped into the museum while his car was being serviced, and came across the weaving and spinning machines used by Violetta Thurstan, one of only 20 women to hold the Military Medal for gallantry.
Aged ten, and living in Broad Street, Penryn, at the time, Stephen remembers visiting Violetta at her home in Mill Lane, Penryn, and watching her give weaving and spinning demonstrations there.
The woman who became known as the “Florence Nightingale” of World War One, and was decorated by the Belgians and the Tsar of Russia for her bravery, also taught Stephen how to use her equipment.
Now a lecturer of business at Truro College, Stephen said: “Violetta was absolutely lovely and so very intelligent. I remember being shown into her home by the housekeeper, Mrs Kathleen Deffee, and watching Violetta working at her craft. Her equipment looks so much smaller now. When she showed me how to operate the machines, they looked and felt so big.
“It’s wonderful that her equipment was given to the museum and seen by so many people.”
Violetta, was born in St Columb around 1879 but spent the last years of her life in Flushing and later at Mill Cottage, Penryn.
At the start of World War I she joined the British Red Cross and worked in Belgium setting up hospitals and caring for the wounded. She was captured by the Germans and released into Denmark. She worked for the Russian Red Cross in Russia, Poland and Macedonia.
For her work in Russia, Belgium and Poland, and in France where she was injured in a bombing raid but continued to help stretcher bearers, she was awarded the Military Medal.
In 1918 she became Director of Bedouin Industries in charge of Arab refugee camps, supervising carpet making with Arab women.
After the war she went to Sweden to undertake a course in weaving and textiles. This was to become a lifelong interest and a subject for which she became internationally recognised and on which she wrote numerous books.
During the Second World War she joined the WRNS. Now in her early 60s, she worked with Naval Intelligence at Falmouth. After the war, she was posted to Cairo then Italy, Austria and Serbia to work on the Catholic Relief Programme.
For her work in evacuating Italian children Violetta was awarded the Companion of the Vatican. In all she was awarded 19 medals.
She died in 1978 and is buried in Falmouth.
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