There's a Long Long Trail A-Winding - vol 2

Alongside the two written diaries there is a photo album full of black and white images, some of them photographs presumably taken by Ethel Moir herself, each one telling its own story.

The handwritten title page reads simply:
"Scottish Women's Hospital"
Dr Elsie Inglis' Serbian - Russian Unit
Rumania - Russia
August 1916 - April 1917
And in the corner E.M.Moir S.W.H

All the photos and cuttings have written descriptions, the very first is of "The Chief" Dr M. Elsie Inglis. There is no doubt that this is what Ethel and her fellow SWH colleagues thought of her. In another, Dr Inglis is surrounded by a group of nurses and orderlies and pride of place in the middle of the group one of the camps pet dogs!

The first few pages are taken up with photos of the journey to Russia, group photos taken on board the troopship all posing together at the start of their long journey. Others in the camp introduce us to her fellow "campers". There's "Murphy" and "Fawcett" holding aloft two dogs that they had presumably adopted, another showing a more serious task, kit inspection, everyone lined up alongside their meagre belongings.

Some of the photos in the album could have been taken by a tourist. They show a market day where children sit in among piles of vegetables for sale, others the true reality of war. Half way through the album there are some photographs of history in the making, taken in Odessa, they show the first days of the Russian Revolution, with troops piled on the roofs of trains and marching through the city, rifles and bayonets at the ready.

These were all memories that Ethel brought back home to Scotland with her and carefully pasted into the album, perhaps to take out and look at time and again.

View the images and text from Ethel Moir's Diaries volume 1 and volume 3.

There's also a mini-exhibition about research undertaken to find out more about Ethel and her family.