I stayed with my aunt for one night, on August 7th, 1914.  One may be pardoned for saying that during the previous three days one had scarcely begun to realise the war, but I was recalled by telegram from Northamptonshire to the headquarters of my Voluntary Aid Detachment in Kent, and spent a night in town en route, to get uniform, etc.  Certainly at my aunt’s house my eyes were opened to a little of what lay before us.  She was on fire with patriotism and a burning wish to help her country, and I immediately caught some of her enthusiasm.

Every hour we rushed out to buy papers, every minute seemed consecrated to preparation for what we could do.  There were uniforms to buy, notes of Red Cross lectures to “rub up,” and, in my aunt’s case, she was busy offering her services in every direction in which they could be of use.

[Page Heading:  VOLUNTARY RATIONING]

Miss Macnaughtan must surely have been one of the first people to begin voluntary rationing.  We had the simplest possible meals during my visit, and although she was proud of her housekeeping, and usually gave one rather perfect food, on this occasion she said how impossible it was for her to indulge in anything but necessaries, when our soldiers would so soon have to endure hardships of every kind.  She said that we ought to be particularly careful to eat very little meat, because there would certainly be a shortage of it later on.

I recollect that there was some hitch about my departure from Norfolk Street on August 8th.  It did not seem clear whether my Voluntary Aid Detachment was going to provide billets for all recalled members, and I remember my aunt’s absolute scorn of difficulties at such a time.

“Of course, go straight to Kent and obey orders,” she cried.  “If you can’t get a bed, come back here; but at least go and see what you can do.”

That was typical of Miss Macnaughtan.  Difficulties did not exist for her.  When quite a young girl she made up her mind that no lack of money, time, or strength should ever prevent her doing anything she wanted to do.  It certainly never prevented her doing anything she felt she ought to do.

The war provided her with a supreme opportunity for service, and she did not fail to take advantage of it.  Of her work in Belgium, especially at the soup-kitchen, I believe it is impossible to say too much.  According to The Times, “The lady with the soup was everything to thousands of stricken men, who would otherwise have gone on their way fasting.”

Among individual cases, too, there were many men who benefited by some special care bestowed on them by her.  There was one wounded Belgian to whom my aunt gave my address before she left for Russia that he might have someone with whom he might correspond.  I used to hear from him regularly, and every letter breathed gratitude to “la dame ecossaise.”  He said she had saved his life.