The Peace Conference being held in Paris was attended by journalists from all parts of the world. The Belgian Government arranged for around 100 of them to take part in a spectacular tour, to show them the damage the Germans had inflicted on the country. They invited the remaining girls of FANY Unit 5 to accompany them as a gesture of gratitude for all they had done. It was launched on June 6^th with a Banquet given by the Mayor and Corporation of Dunkirk, which had suffered so much.

Grace had pride of place next to the Mayor, basking in the reflected glory. She was in her element. Not only that, she had been allocated a car with the Belgian Lieutenant in charge of all the male drivers involved, with an Army Sergeant as chauffeur! The procession of pressmen and photographers went everywhere – to Dinant, to Namur, to Charleroi, to Louvain, to Malines, - so many ruined towns and villages and war zones occupied by the hated Boches.

Everywhere they went they were welcomed with crowds and cheers, with a special reception laid on at Liege.

'The crowds were enormous" Grace wrote. "for miles before we went into the town & they lined the streets." Among the cars near the front of the motorcade, Grace in her khaki uniform, officers' bars, medals, and a sergeant driver, caused quite a stir. People couldn't place what she was doing there – nor the other FANYs further back. Grace recalls "The schoolchildren threw us flowers and kisses and cheered. In Liege a woman presented me with a handsome bouquet of flowers, everyone yelled with joy at our imposing procession."

At the Reception Room at Liege, old Major General Jacques "embraced me, and recalled our friendship on the Yser Front in 1914."

From Liege the column moved on to Spa through more cheering crowds, to a huge banquet organised and served by local women in national costumes.

At the feast, General Jacques had reserved a place beside him for Grace. At the end, when the time came for toasts, he stood up and raised his glass. "To Their Majesties King Leopold and Queen Elisabeth." After the Royal Toast was drunk, he added another, "and to Lieutenant Madame McDougall who has been with us since 1914, first at Antwerp, and then in our trenches on the Yser.

It must have been a wonderful moment for Grace, bringing back so many memories, and being so publicly recognised for all she had done. Many of the men who had been in the retreat from Antwerp to the Yser left their seats and crowded round Grace, shaking her hand and kissing her cheek.

"It was my little hour of triumph" she wrote "and dear old General Jacques beamed at me over his glass, - pleased and proud."

It was the high-point of the tour for her. Back in Brussels the journalists not only made flowery speeches, but presented each the girls with a little gold pendant inscribed with their name and the date, 6^th – 16^th June 1919.

Later she was presented to Cardinal Mercier, who thanked her 'in his soft, flowing voice for what I had done for his country." This meant so much to her, with her religious upbringing in Aberdeen, and her time spent at a Belgian convent before the war.

There was more to come. Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth of Belgium commanded their attendance for Tea at the Palace, to say her farewells to her "Petites FANYs" as she always called them. She had a very high regard for them, never failing to acknowledge any of them if ever their paths crossed while out in public.

She was a perfect hostess. Putting them all at their ease, chatting to all of them. When tea was over, she invited them into her garden for official photographs, afterwards producing her own camera and taking snapshots of the group for herself. Her final act was to present Grace with a signed photograph of herself, in a silver frame, a treasured possession. Of the gathering, Grace wrote: That was the Grande Finale."

It was.

The girls were all given a month's pay, and railway passes to wherever they wished. Grace, with friends Wood, Fergie and Morgan headed for Xamtem, where Belgium's crack cavalry regiment the Guides, were stationed. The FANYs had had a long association with these men since 1914, and had been the first British back into Bruges, marching alongside them.

Grace remembers "We spent a wonderful week with them – it was summertime and we were in the highest of spirits. They were, as always, very perfect hosts, and it was sadly we left them"

They were almost at the end of the road, but still managed to find their way into sticky and tricky situations. Driving to Dusseldorf after leaving the Guides, they ran into a kind of stand-off between Allied troops and Germans in the city, apparently refusing entry. French artillery was lined up, ranged on the town, with Belgian infantry in reserve. French sentries were guarding the bridge when Grace and her companions, still in uniform, left the car and approached.

According to Grace the sentries "mistook me for the Queen of the Belgians, presented arms and gave me a Royal Salute, and let me pass. Two French Generals hurried from the other side to meet us, bowing, saluting showing us their arrangements. They escorted me to the place where the German barriers were and walked back with me across the bridge to our car, and stood bare-headed till I got in. We thought it prudent to move on – we realised their error, we wondered if they ever did?"

From there, the four drove on to Cologne where they received a welcome from ex-FANY Decima Moore, who had organised and was running a wonderful Leave Centre Club for Allied servicemen. They had lunch with Decima and a General Levy.

After that it was back to Brussels for the last farewells. Even that was not to go according to plan. Arriving back in their old Mess, the few remaining girls had gone to a ball at the Rue de Loi, leaving a message that the others were to follow. It seemed like a fitting end to their demob tour. They all got dressed up and headed for the party. But – as she reached the front door of the house, Grace was suddenly hit by appalling pain in her side, and would have collapsed, if it hadn't been for Wood.

They sent for a taxi and Wood took her back to the Mess. It seems her old enemy appendicitis had struck again. Two doctors arrived "and I had gallons of morphia but nothing seemed to help." The next day she was urged to have her appendix out once and for all. This was followed by a message from the Queen's doctor Neuman that she should immediately go to the Berkendael Institute. This was the medical clinic built up so effectively by Edith Cavell, and now run by the Matron she had trained to take over.

Grace was there for three weeks. Ronald, already demobbed, had come over as soon as he heard of her illness. She was, she recorded. "thoroughly spoilt and made a fuss of – the nurses extraordinarily kind and sweet."

There were flowers galore, visitors flocked to see her, and "handsome young men helped my husband carry me downstairs into the garden!"

In spite of her comfort and cosseting, her husband's presence, and blessed relief from the pain of her appendix, it was an upsetting and depressing time for her. Not only did she miss taking part in the Victory Parade through London, something she would have dearly loved. She also missed the first FANY reunion dinner, sending a telegram of good wishes instead. Most disappointing of all she had to turn down the Royal Command to attend the Garden Party at Buckingham Palace, when leading FANYs were introduced to the King and Queen, thus missing another potential high-point in her life.

Though physically improving, the reaction to her recent experiences set in and took hold. The hectic euphoria of the aftermath of war; her mother's death; the end of her life with the FANY Corps she loved; the parting from friends and comrades; the prospect of a future thousands of miles from the world she knew, in an alien country – all these accumulated, her nerves went to pieces, she fell apart emotionally.

Friends took her and Ronald to Luxemburg where, amid idyllic surroundings she rested and recovered while Ronald fussed over her and fished. From there they moved to Zoute, the Chateau Roumont, a centre of hospitality and fun when Unit 5 first moved to Brussels.

By then Ronald,always something of a rover, was itching to get back to Scotland and join his older sister, Mabel, with whom he was very close. Because of the bond between, them Mabel had come to resent Grace taking such a large part in her brother's life, an attitude that lasted throughout their lives.

Eventually, with Grace feeling very much better, Ronald took off for Scotland. Grace, still under doctor's orders not to exert herself, stayed behind.

By September she was fully recovered and back in Brussels. The Belgian War office loaned her the use of a lorry and driver to take her to Calais. There she collected the last of her belongings, abandoned almost a year before, in the hurry to join the triumphal return to Belgium.

Calais was being presented with the coveted Croix de Guerre in recognition of the suffering it had undergone through the years of conflict. Grace wrote: "It was a great moment to be there." It must also have been a sad one, for her, on the verge of leaving, perhaps for ever, with so many memories of her times there – dangers, happiness, comradeship, challenges, friendships.

From Calais she was driven back to Ostend, again a place of memories. There she met up with another FANY, Stubbs, with whom she would cross to England. The ship's Captain was under orders from the Belgian War Ministry to provide Grace with a cabin.

"Someone gave me a bouquet of flowers, people kissed me and patted my hands, and with misty eyes and a strange tightening of my heart I watched the coastline recede; Belgium – the Belgian Army – what hopes and fears and suffering we had shared."

This was September, the same month in which, five long years ago, Grace had arrived in Belgium, alone and untested. Since then she had experienced the hell of an unspeakably dreadful war. She had plumbed the depths of despair; climbed the peaks of success. Tragedy and triumph had become part and parcel of her life. Those years had taken from her a sister, two brothers and her mother.

She stood at the door of a new life, one she looked upon with both anticipation and dread. A woman who loved adventure, she had little idea of the emptiness and loneliness of the life that lay ahead. She also loved her family, friends, the social whirl, dancing, gaiety, and was desperately sad at the thought of leaving these behind, perhaps for ever.

Her own words underline the extent of her feelings.

"The boat bore me inexorably to the doom that awaited; the doom that was spoken of almost at once, as my husband greeted me at Victoria Station.

'We sail for Rhodesia in three weeks!' "