A first floor flat at 4 Glazbury Road was sold for £760,000 in 2018. Mr and Mrs S Pilling, who lived there when it was a house more than a century ago would be surprised.
However, they are pretty good houses; more than a cut above Margravine Gardens. But like so many of our families, the Pillings endured a great grief. Their daughter, Doris, died aged twenty-four in 1919.
She is buried in Margravine Cemetery. She was a Special Military Probationer in Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service.
“Special Military Probationers were women who had little or no formal training as nurses, and they served under almost identical conditions of service to members of Voluntary Aid Detachments and did similar work.” (westernfrontassociation.com)
“World War I Nurses were members of the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS) and there were about 10,000 regular and reserve QAs serving in countries such as France, India, East Africa, Italy, Palestine, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Salonika and Russia.” (qaranc.co.uk)
I don’t know how Doris Pilling lost her life.
And now for something completely different.
The Times editorial weather vane has shifted. On Tuesday alleged marital problems between Prince Albert and Princess Charlene (Monaco) took up most of a page. Because more readers are online their preferences can be tracked. Yesterday, with Pavlovian predictability, there was a Gotha’s Almanach avalanche (alliteration, adorable) of European royals: Princess Elizabeth (Belgium), Princess Leonor (Spain), Princess Alexia (Netherlands), and our own (untitled) Arthur Chatto (son of Princess Margaret’s daughter). Personally I am in favour; better than photographs of sunrises, sunsets and cute animals.
Hasn’t he grown up since he was a page boy in 2012.
The royal succession should be reorganised – Arthur Chatto should be heir to the throne!
Influenza plus exhaustion is one guess. Flu was abating in early 1919 London but exposure during ward duty could have done her in. Glad memorial in good tick.
Doris was born in Leytonstone in 1895, the daughter of Sam Pelling and Mary Ellen McNally. Sam was a Civil Servant – Clerk, Admiralty. Doris died of pneumonia.
Thank you for your research.