By Averil Staunton
The Medical Officer would have been busy, catering to the needs of the girls as a
lot of them who were being fed properly, maybe for the first time in years, might
have suffered trauma had from stress and years of loss and emotional turmoil.
Most of them who had never had a period, which had been suppressed from lack
of a balanced diet, started to ovulate for the first time. As the girls and sailors were
in such close proximity on board ship, Matron and her team would have needed
eyes at the back of their heads to keep them apart.
If the girls had all behaved themselves during the day, at evening time when the
lanterns were lit around the deck, one might hear the sound of laughter, as they
enjoyed a short time before retiring singing, dancing, playing games and gossiping
among themselves and remembering their families or friends they left at hoe at the
workhouse.