NAMED “The James and Martha Smith” after its donors, this Great War ambulance and its driver, a member of the Keighley National Motor Volunteers, made what at the time was considered an epic journey on March 10, 1918.
At eight o’clock that Sunday morning it left Skipton Auxiliary Hospital – part of the Keighley War Hospital Group – bearing the matron and a seriously wounded soldier, whose hot water bottles were renewed at Darlington.
At 3.15 in the afternoon the patient was delivered at Gosforth, Newcastle. “The James and Martha Smith” then returned the matron to Skipton at 11.15pm. The total distance was 220 miles, and the soldier “stood the journey well”.
Keighley’s ambulances were often named. There was an “Elizabeth” and a “Duke of Wellingtons”, and even a converted commercial vehicle with its red cross superimposed on the legend “The Stockbridge Finishing Company Ltd”!
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