It was a hectic three weeks – seeing as many friends and relatives as possible, shopping, arranging finance, During this frantic period the Corps held a farewell dinner for Grace and Ronald. Speeches were made, plaudits and congratulations passed round. Grace thanked all those who had supported her so well, helped her through difficult times and built the FANY into the great Corps it was.
She and her husband were presented with a magnificent dark oak canteen of silver, the night ending in fond farewells and tears as old comrades parted, and Grace was made an Honorary Officer and Life Member of the Corps in recognition of her outstanding contribution over the years.
The remaining days rushed by. Family and friends travelled to Southampton to see them off. "to Rhodesia" wrote Grace, unable to resist hyperbole "far away from friends and comrades; to loneliness and a country that knew not war, nor the Gods of war, nor the brave glory of after-battle wine, the flushed, recounting faces!"
This was written in retrospect after years spent in Rhodesia. She felt that her life was ended, after "five crowded years of youth and life and love and death."
During three uncomfortable and crowded weeks on the ship, Grace's old adventurous spirit reasserted itself, along with her steadfast optimism and confidence. The lure of the challenges ahead had displaced the wrench of leaving behind her life in England.
They spent a hectic week or two in Cape Town, Ronald happily showing her around many of his old haunts; sightseeing along the wide-curving Bay of Good Hope; savouring afresh the wondrous views from the top of Table Mountain. Both of them relaxed and happy, it was the honeymoon they never managed back In 1915.
Then came the long, winding, fascinating three day train journey, across the Kalahari Desert, through the Hex River Mountains, over the Transvaal border and on to Bulawayo. Grace was intrigued to learn that it translated into 'the Place of Execution'. As far as their dreams of farming success was concerned, it became only too relevant.
Ronald, impatient to set up as a farmer, and confident in his knowledge of the land, jumped in and bought the first farm offered to him, without even going to see it. The 'forty' miles to it turned out to be double that, and the 'good roads' were little more than rough tracks most of the way.
No records remain regarding their subsequent problems, but in 1926 Grace published a novel about an ex-FANY who goes to farm in Rhodesia with her ex-army husband. Most of the adventures experienced by the heroine of the book as a FANY are Grace's real-life episodes and incidents; and it is probable that what happened to the heroine trying to come to terms with the hard, rough life on the farm, also set near Bulawyo, were those of Grace herself.
She often told her family how difficult it was, how lonely and isolated the farm, Infiningwe was, miles from the nearest white neighbour. Dealing with the natives was a nightmare until she picked up enough of the lingua franca, known as Kitchen Kaffir, to converse with them. Ronald was out all day looking after his cattle, and checking that the native 'boys' were feeding and watering them properly.
But she was a fighter, and struggled on, gradually winning through, becoming fluent in Kitchen Kaffir, training the 'boys' to her ways. One particular incident she liked to recount raised her standing considerably among the natives. She had been giving the kitchen servants a dressing down for breaking crockery, when she dropped a glass on the stone floor. Wide grins appeared instantly on the faces of the natives. But, instead of shattering as it should have, it bounced. Always a fast thinker, she seized the opportunity. "There," she said "if you're going to drop something, that's the way to do it." Apparently grins faded, mouths dropped open, and thereafter she was regarded with some awe!
The servants lived well away from the farmhouse, with their families, in their own huts, or kaias. This was standard practice in or out of towns. One of the first things old hands impressed upon newcomers was the constant mantra ' Never let a Kaffir into your home after sundown."!
One thing Grace never got used to was the lavatory, a small wooden hut well away from the house itself. There were no such things as drains. The door had holes drilled in it, to let in some light, and give someone already inside a view of anyone else approaching. Small children were called piccanninis, and as this was a small hut, it was known as a piccannini kaia. Kitchen Kaffir was very basic. Within, spiders or other unpleasant creatures, lurked. One never went to the 'PK', as it was euphemistically called, after dark.
During her first year on the farm she became pregnant. She was seldom able to get into town, but when she did her doctor was not happy with her condition, Shortly before the baby was due, the doctor sent a note to tell her she must come into Bulawayo to have the child. Putting it off to the last moment, she had a dreadful eighty mile trek in an ox-wagon, over tracks worse than any she had experienced in France. She told her family later that she really thought she was going to die, that it was a pain-filled nightmare journey, jolted and jarred at every bump.
It was all worth it with the birth of a sturdy young son, which she desperately wanted, calling him Charles Ronald after the two men she loved more than any others, her father and her husband.
Back home on the farm, life was now still more difficult, though the natives were far more helpful and amenable than they had been before now that Grace had wee Ronald to look after.
To complete her joy, delight and pride in young Ronald, Grace received a letter from the Belgian Queen, Elisabeth, agreeing to become his Godmother. She had sent the request off with some trepidation to the Palace, asking if the Queen would grant her the honour. After weeks of suspense, as mail boats chugged across oceans, the Queen agreed. Grace was over the moon.
The next three years were difficult and Spartan, Grace's loneliness was somewhat assuaged by having her baby son to look after. Towards the end of 1923 she became pregnant again, and decided that this time she would not go through the awful experience she had had with Charles Ronald. She still had some money left, the farm was just about breaking even, and in Spring 1924 she returned home, where on 9th May she gave birth at Selling, in Kent, to a daughter, Rona Grace.
Again, it was a difficult birth, and luckily her cousin Elisabeth, with whom she had weathered her illness back in 1916, was there for her once more. Now with two young children to care for, Grace realized she had to be fully recovered and ready. The thought of going back to that hard unrelenting slog in Rhodesia was daunting.
The months went by. Baby Rona was happy and healthy, Ronald bright and talkative. Grace felt she needed more time to bolster her resolve. She visited family and friends, proud to show off her children, and met up again with old comrades from the war. It was a wonderful time of relaxation and happiness for her, back in civilization.
To complete her return to normality, she determined to go once more to Belgium, which remained so deeply etched into her memories. This was, perhaps, the best decision she could have made, and there is no doubt it buoyed up her spirits and helped her to face the difficulties that inevitably lay ahead. She loved Belgium, cared passionately for the Queen, and admired and respected her for the manner in which she had conducted herself during the war.
She writes about her visit at some length in her memoirs. Arriving in Brussels with Ronald and Rona, she "was astonished and touched to find that they still remembered me and still showed their appreciation of the little I was able to do for their Army."
No doubt tears were shed, too, when 'on the morning after my arrival dear old General Clooten waited upon me with an enormous bouquet of flowers," She was so delighted, felt so honoured that he should have come to see her, and so soon.
Grace had written to the Palace to inform them of her intended visit, no doubt in the hope the Queen would give her an audience. She did - , sending for both her and young Ronald, who was fascinated by the soldiers on guard outside, and the rows of footmen lining the corridors inside. Grace noted that when they reached her "the Queen herself, so dainty and exquisite" - held his attention.
Like any mother, Grace had been anxious to ensure his good behaviour at the Palace. He had admired a toy fire engine in a shop window, and Grace told him that if he was very good at his Godmother's, Mummy might get it for him.
At the Palace the Queen knelt on the floor with Ronald to help unwrap and show him a wonderful model village she had got for him, a variety of hand crafted and painted houses, cottages, churches, taverns and a village hall. It was to become a treasured possession for years. However, after thanking her politely for it, he then said in his clear, little voice "But Mummy, what about my fire engine?"
The Queen, with children of her own "didn't mind a bit." It was a measure of her understanding and generosity that Grace recalls "On Christmas Eve an enormous box tied with ribbon was brought to our Hotel, and proved to be a monster Fire Engine with ten Firemen in leather coats and helmets, complete with axes at their belts, and escape ladders and hosepipes. I don't think any small boy had such a wonderful Fairy Godmother!"
Finally, to her amazement, the day before she was due to leave the Hotel and return to England, an Officer was sent from the Ministry of War to tell the management that "they must not overcharge me, and must remember that I had served with the Belgian Army."
Her confidence and self-esteem were now fully restored by these unexpected but welcome tributes from her past. They gave her the will and determination to return to that lonely, faraway farm in Rhodesia. A new year, she would make it a new start.
Unfortunately, things began to go badly wrong that year, with the start of a severe drought throughout the area. It lasted over three heartbreaking years. All the cattle died, and there was no insurance against that sort of natural disaster. The family, almost bankrupt, and by then with another son, Desmond, packed up and moved into Bulawayo.
Ronald managed to get a job as a surveyor with Rhodesian Railways, not particularly well-paid, but by this time he was into his fifties, and not in a position to pick and choose. It also involved a good deal of travelling up and down the line which ran through Umtali on the Portuguese East (Mozambique) frontier to the port of Beira, Rhodesia's main outlet to the sea.
There he had an office where he spent much of his time. His other base was a permanent tented camp in the bush just over the frontier in Mozambique itself, staffed by a dozen natives, from where he carried out inspection tours of the hundred of miles of line in his care.
After two years he and Grace moved to Umtali, a much smaller town than Bulawayo, but a lot closer to Beira, which meant that he was away from home much less. Grace now settled into the life of a colonial wife, and hated it. On the farm there was a physical loneliness, but here it was a loneliness of mind. In later years she confided in her daughter a great deal, who, in an article for The Guardian newspaper wrote "My mother hated golf, tennis drinking and the total cultural desert that was Rhodesian town life." In one of her mother's diaries was this entry, "Conversation consisted of a string of utter inanities interspersed with vicious gossip." It was not a happy time for her. Now there was no motor car for her, no horses, no money.
Her life before Rhodesia was one of adventure, comfort when she wanted it, social esteem, parties, discussions, riding. In Rhodesia she found it suffocating, and did her best to moderate this by using all the natural gifts she possessed – organising, writing, acting.
Having successfully broken into print with a second book, a novel titled The Golden Bowl, she began work on her war memoirs, using the material and diaries she had kept so diligently. This went a long way to alleviating the unhappiness she was experiencing. Called 'Five Years with the Allies', it covered those years very comprehensively. Unable to find a publisher for it, far too late for the post-war spate of books of that genre, she lodged it with the Imperial War Museum, where it has since become a valuable source of information for later historians writing about women at war.
As well as writing her memoirs, she took up free lance journalistm, writing for the Cape Times, Rhodesian Advertiser and other papers. Regaining some of her energy and drive, she became President of the Ex-Services Association in Umtali, and also a prominent member of the Womens' Institute (WI), being elected Convener of the Standing Committee for Peace for the Federation of Rhodesian Womens' Institutes. She put her considerable acting talents to work organising an Amateur Dramatic Society, putting on plays which became very popular in the town.
In 1934 she even tried to raise a Rhodesian FANY contingent, but on running the idea past FANY HQ in London, it was vetoed on the grounds of the political and racial problems experienced there.
This was probably just as well, as the following year Grace had to return to England for medical treatment. Her heart had been playing up for some time, and it was felt that the climate and height above sea level had something to do with it. Originally, it was only to be for a year, but other complications set in and her stay was extended. The children had come with her, as it would have been impossible for Ronald to keep them with him.
In spite of her health problems, however, she refused to slow down, enrolling for a year's course at the Bonar Law college. She was dismayed,too, to discover that the FANY were not represented at the Silver Jubilee Festival of Empire. She responded swiftly, successfully forming an Old Comrades' Association, which ensured the Corps' appearance at many events of national pageantry, including regular participation at the Armistice Parades.
With the threat of a possible war hanging in the air, Grace found time to join the St John Ambulance Brigade and renew her Certificate in First Aid, then enrolled in the national Air Raid Precautions (ARP) organization, run within the local councils.
At the same time, she resumed her journalism as best she could, being published in a variety of local and occasionally, national newspapers. The Daily Sketch published a long piece about her with her photograph, headlined 'CALL TO BRITAIN'S WAR NURSES" with a sub-heading 'Leader Says She is not in a Position to Give Reasons'. There is no follow-up to this in any available records, so quite what she had in mind may never be known.
In the summer of 1937 Ronald came home on three months home leave, coinciding with the school holidays. It was a very happy time, weeks of good weather spent up in Dinnet, Aberdeenshire, Grace's old stamping ground. He returned to Rhodesia, due to retire in 1940. The war intervened. Rhodesia Railways asked him to stay on for the duration, as, with all the younger men flocking to the Colours, there was nobody to take over from him.
In the months before war actually broke out, Grace approached FANY HQ with a view to rejoining as an active member of the Corps, but was rejected as being too old. It really was a forlorn hope. After all those years of absence she would have been hopelessly out of touch with people, systems, equipment, the whole set-up. It was doomed to failure from the start, but she was nevertheless upset. Added to which, some of those now running the Corps had been antagonized while Grace was Commandant, during those wartime years in command, and would have made things very difficult indeed.
She was living in Dorset, and working for a national charity covering a large area, for which she had been provided with a car. However, after the 1940 debacle, petrol was only provided for essential purposes, and the job folded. She took various positions after that, all to do with providing services for the Forces, the WVS, YMCA and the like, running canteens, helping out on mobile tea vans.
Moving to London in 1941, she found herself once again crossing swords with the Establishment, but from a different position. She got a job with the War Office, in a department looking after officers' records. It was a fairly lowly clerical job, but Grace was happy to do it, as she felt she was helping the war effort, and working for the British Army, even if indirectly.
She was horrified and outraged at the behaviour of her colleagues at work, many of them at that time Civil Servants. They came to work where many of them read books, wrote letters, and some even knitted. They sat around long tables with the files in front of them, alternately working and relaxing. She couldn't believe it.
Unable to keep quiet, Grace told them in no uncertain terms what she thought of them. It didn't go down well. She herself was getting through file after file, working non-stop, until approached by the Union representative and told she was clearing far too many files and to 'cut down the numbers by at least half.'
This she refused to do, again making her feelings very plain.
Shortly after, she was summoned to the office of the Civil Servant in charge of the department, who told her 'she was making waves unnecessarily, and she must learn to pull together.' That didn't go down well. When she told him just what was going on, he apparently insisted she was exaggerating. Moved to another department, filing away letters and memos, she was again amongst women who were just "Outright slackers," She could not take any more, and gave in her notice.
Fiercely patriotic she exploded at home. She could not understand how "British people could behave like that." From then on she mostly worked in some of the many Forces Canteens run by the Salvation Army, or Toc H or the YMCA and others. Hard work though it was, with often inconvenient hours, she felt she was at least doing something directly for the Forces, with others who worked just as hard as she.
Throughout the war, Grace had to struggle to make ends meet. When it ended, so did the jobs she had been able to do. Ronald finally retired in 1945, but it was near the end of 1946 before he was able to get a passage home. Civilians were way down on the priority list. He came home, to Grace's relief and delight, but this was shortlived. A winter of food and fuel shortages and the sort of freezing conditions he hadn't experienced since WW1 was too much for him. He died from pneumonia, aged 72, in the February of 1947.
Grace remained in London until 1960, health now failing, then moved down to a flat in Bexhill-on-Sea, bought for her by her daughter, Rona. She was comfortable and happy there, close to the sea.
This feeling of peace and contentment peaked when she was able to return to her beloved Aberdeenshire a few months before her death. Writing about it at length in a letter to Rona, it was obvious that the trip was a wonderful finale, a last high point towards the close of her life.
She was invited to stay in the Highlands with her nephew, the only son of her much-loved younger brother Billy. He pulled out all the stops, gave her a wonderful time. Also named Bill, he served through World War 2 in the Black Watch winning the coveted M.C. denied to his father.
He drove her the length and breadth of those Highlands she remembered so well, stopping to escort her round anywhere and everywhere she could remember from her youth. She ended a long letter to Rona about the trip "They say life completes a circle – mine has. I have been to all those places of early girlhood, and slept in my Aberdeen, only about 6 houses from the house I was born in."
It was a letter shot through with excitement, enthusiasm, awakened memories, matching so well the wild exhilaration that coursed through her veins so many years before in the war-torn fields of France.
It was her final curtain call.
She was content and at peace with herself.
She passed away quietly after weeks in hospital, fighting to the last. It was fitting it should be the exact date on which she had enrolled in the FANY Corps way back in 1910, when it all began, 29th January. A Memorial Service was held for her, attended by a surprising number of people. FANY Headquarters sent three officers in uniform, a gracious and generous gesture Grace would have appreciated.
In the small, quiet churchyard of Glentaner, by Dinnet, Aberdeenshire, at Grace's request, an Aberdeen granite plaque was installed on an outside wall of the old stone Chapel, overlooking the small cemetery, where so many of her forbears are buried.
It reads___
In Loving Memory of
GRACE ALEXANDRA McDOUGALL
1887 – 1963
Croix de Guerre,
Medaille d'Honneur Ordre de Leopold II,
Medaille d'Honneur de la Courone,
Medaille de la Reine Elisabeth,
Medailles de Secours des Blesses Militaire,
Medaille des Epidemies