Grace determined to find out all she could about the Corps she had joined. The more she discovered, the more she accepted, perhaps subconsciously, that she had at last found her direction in life, and began to realize just how much she would have to do to mould the organization to her vision of it.

She threw all her energies into making it worthwhile. About her first he wrote later "I turned up in my quaint uniform with fast beating heart to face the battalion of women." In fact, as she noted, the 'battalion' turned out to be 6 ladies at the riding drill, and 3 for stretcher training. She was disappointed, but not disheartened. She stayed on. "Was it" she mused in her diary later, "my Scottish reluctance to losing my guineas, or was it merely Destiny that made me remain?" She added darkly "I left that parade in thoughtful mood!"

The FANY Corps had been founded by an ex- Cavalry Sergeant who had been wounded in the Sudan Campaign some years before. After he left the army he brooded on the lack of immediate medical aid to those left lying wounded on the battlefield, and came up with what he saw as the solution. A troop of young women, able to ride well, and trained in First Aid, who would hover on the fringes of the field of battle, then gallop out to succour the wounded and get them back to a Medical Aid Post staffed by trained nurses. It was never made clear just how the wounded were to be transported, but it was assumed to be on the backs of the rescuers' horse.

Grace dug further into the Terms & Conditions. Uniforms and First Aid kits were to be provided by the young ladies themselves. They also had to pay a 10 shillings joining fee, 6 shillings a month subscription to HQ and a Riding School, plus the cost of horse hire! This was no bar to the well-heeled young ladies, and the idea caught on. Many middle and upper class women were bored and dissatisfied with the restrictions of their Edwardian life-styles, and saw this as a way of escape to a more exciting world.

Recruits poured in, especially after the Corps' successful appearance at the Royal Naval & Military Tournament of 1908. Baker's daughter, Katie, promoted to Sergeant Major, was given the task of overseeing recruitment, and the year 1909 started off extremely well. But it was then, Grace discovered, that it all began to fall apart.

A show held in June to raise funds, produced a princely £170, mainly to obtain an Ambulance Wagon. Then the money vanished. Of the ensuing rows and investigations there is very little information, but there was a faction within the Corps which was very critical of, and dissatisfied with, the way Baker was running it. This faction, led by a very strong-minded and able woman, Mrs St.Clair Stobart, a practising suffragette, managed to tear the Corps apart, when her group of followers signed a motion disassociating themselves from Captain Baker and his Corps.

Months later, it transpired that the missing £170 had been deposited by Mrs Stobart in an account opened in the name of The Womens' Sick & Wounded Convoy Corps, set up and run by Mrs Stobart herself. Eventually, after a good deal of legal wrangling, the money was split 50 – 50 between the two Corps, Stobart was forbidden to use the FANY name in any context, and she left the FANY, later reappearing with her much depleted Womens' Corps in Serbia.

This was well-nigh a fatal blow to the FANY. 'Captain' Baker, as a Sergeant of Cavalry, may have been able to put the fear of death into his troopers, but faced with a bunch of well-off, incorrigibly independent ladies, he was out of his depth completely. His Corps, 100 strong the year before, could now barely muster a dozen. Interest waned and died.

The more Grace delved into the recent past of the Corps, the more she realized how Baker was burying his head in the sand. Things were far removed from the picture he had painted for her when she made enquiries before joining. Once she had grasped this, she determined she would change things.

From that time on, the Corps entered an entirely new phase, and would never look back. Over the next year or two, Grace took it by the scruff of the neck, and shook it back to life………

The small group of FANYs who gamely stayed on after the fiascos of the past year were staunch and true supporters of the Corps and its aims. Baker and his daughter Katie were still nominally in charge, but they were shaken by the recent events, and their ideas for publicity and recruitment were uncoordinated and unsound.

One of the FANY in particular who remained loyal, was Lilian Franklin. She had joined the Corps in 1909, the year previous to Grace, and was to become the firm foundation on which Grace was able to build a strong and virile Corps, unfazed by the often wild and unexpected way in which Grace sought to expand its identity and sphere of operation. Already on the promotion ladder, as a Sergeant, she and Grace became Co-Commandants of the Corps. Known affectionately as 'Boss', she went on to be sole Commandant of the FANY in the immediate post war years.

She and Grace were chalk and cheese. Lilian, quiet-spoken, totally unflappable, confident, steady, never given to histrionics, a woman who carefully thought things through before taking any action.

Grace, on the other hand, was emotional, impetuous, always ready to jump in where angels would fear to tread; plans and ideas tumbling headlong out of her, one after the other; on to the next project before the last was properly up and running, but confident it would be. And almost always right, probably because of the sort of girls she led - spirited, determined, and all guided strongly by their unofficial motto "I Cope"!

Between the two, Lilian and Grace made an incredibly effective combination, but inevitably on occasion very much at odds with each other.

There is no doubt at all, however, that without the seemingly tireless, forceful determination of Grace, and her constant enterprise both in the early pre-war days and during the dreadful war years, the Corps would never have survived. Not only did it survive, but grew, both in numbers, influence and activities.

But in 1910 Grace was a newcomer, and had to play the waiting game, something she did not excel at!

One of the first assignments Baker gave her was to act as an usher at a London East End factory dance, handing out not only programmes, but recruitment leaflets for the FANY. This was highly unlikely ground for enrolling 'young ladies of independent means', a fact which Grace pointed out to Baker in no uncertain terms when she went to his Holborn HQ to speak to him, and express her dissatisfaction with the whole set up. As a result, and no doubt recognizing in her future officer material, he asked for her help in future projects.

This was just the opening she had been working towards. Having been given an inch, she lost no time in seizing the proverbial mile. She redesigned the totally impractical uniform. Out went the scarlet jacket, the voluminous dark blue skirt, riding side-saddle – as all respectable young ladies were taught.

In came riding astride, khaki tunics, divided skirts with riding breeches beneath, boots and puttees; and to begin with, that great symbol of the British Empire, the 'solar topi', or sun helmet. She followed this up by arranging the drills, and writing a First Aid Directive based on the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) Training Manual.

The new breed of FANY had been born. It was just a start. There is no doubt that Grace was a genius at organizing things, and possessed a flair for spotting opportunities. Unfortunately, she tended to see only the big picture, leaving the detail of ground-level problem-sorting to others. This rather cavalier attitude was to arouse deep antagonism among some colleagues and subordinates in the war years ahead.