Stanley beach Nurse Randal.JPG

Wed, 12/09/2015 - 01:41

This photo is such a mess with legends written on the front corrected with Tippex, I wouldn't have posted it but for the fact that it may help to identify the beach. The photo shows Cicely Warren with her two children. The legend at top identifies her friend on the right as a nurse from the Peak Hospital, Nurse Randal. I don't know if this was her first name. I haven't found "Randal" mentioned as a surname elsewhere. The legend on the bottom border of the photo reads "Stanley Beach Hong Kong", written from memory by the little girl in the photo when she inherited the album. The photo is one of a pair taken on the same day - probably 1929.

Jill

Date picture taken
1929
Tags
Shows place(s)

Comments

Looked in the 1929 Blue Book. There is no Randal. However, there is a Alice Florence Randle in the Medical Department who was first appointed as Sister on 5 April 1929.

Source: 1929 Blue Book

I think that Alice Florence Randle is a very strong candidate for Cicely Warren’s friend, “Nurse Randal”. The date of her appointment as a Sister is also a good match. As a little girl, Diana Warren is unlikely ever to have seen Sister Randle’s name written down and will only have had an aural memory of it. Many thanks for tracking her down, moddsey.

Many thanks, once more, moddsey. I'm indebted to you for so many different pieces of information. My own family story is still in progress. At the moment I'm looking at late 1923. Although newly married, Cicely Warren has already left for home on the SS Patroclus on 3 September (your information). The contents of the Towers, the Warrens' family house are all forfeit in order to pay the outstanding debt to CEW's former partner, John Olson. An auction would take place in May 1924. The Warren brothers, Leslie (23) and Arthur (17) may go to live at 98A Wanchai Road. Newly qualified both as an architect and a sanitary engineer, Leslie Warren is trying to pick up the pieces of CE Warren & Co. Ltd. under the watchful eye of the LBM accountant John Fleming. Cicely will return in September 1924. Her son will be born at the Peak Hospital in June 1925. I had thought that her friendship with Nurse Randle began at that point, but moddsey has pointed out that, according to the Blue Books, Alice Randle didn't enter government service until 1929. The Randles were a Hong Kong family, but I haven't yet traced if Alice was Hong Kong born.

Oh dear! But thank you. In that case the lady holding Geoffrey Warren in the christening photo of 1925 is unlikely to be Nurse Randle. That person will have to remain anonymous for the time being.