WHEN Phyll MacDonald-Ross left her seaside home in 1938 for the big smoke and bright lights of London she could not have imagined what her life had in store for her.

After a last drink with her father at the Kings Arms, she was leaving Dovercourt and heading to the capital to start her training as a nurse.

Soon after she had qualified the Second World War began ripping through the capital and Hackney Hospital, where she worked, was inundated with casualties.

“I remember one day the Luftwaffe started coming at noon,”said Phyll, now aged 95.

“It started one afternoon at 12 when I was on casualty and it was my job to look after the sterilisation kit for emergencies.

“A lady came in when the air raid siren went off.

“I thought what should I do – throw myself on her to protect her? Or do we both hide under the bed?

“When the blast came I threw myself over her. Then two or three seconds later there was smoke, dust and dirt everywhere.

“A man came bursting through the door crying ‘My eyes, my eyes – I can’t see’.

“After that it was a stream of people, one after the other.

“I had to keep cleaning the wounds so they could be treated by the doctors, but there were others who were dead on arrival – there was nothing anyone could do.

“It went on until 10pm and then again the night after.

“There was absolutely no respite because the day after there were more raids.

“Something I remember vividly is the firemen who used to come in and they were just as black as soot.

“There was not much we could do for them.

“All you could see of them was their mouths and you could try and wipe it clean.

“That is what it was like in London – it never stopped, but there were people who lived through it.

“The docks seemed to be targeted a lot by the Nazis.”

In the 1960s, two decades after VE Day, Phyll began penning her memoirs of her career on an old typewriter, including her memories of the war and how she meet husband Alistair.

The jottings never went anywhere until grandson Ian Roberts – a published author himself – got his hands on the pages.

The pair then secured a book deal with Little Brown Book Group and Phyll’s story titled Bandaging the Blitz is now available to buy.

FOR A FULL INTERVIEW SEE THIS WEEK'S HARWICH STANDARD