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I do WW2 Living History as RAMC Medical Orderly and I am in need of some help finding a few bits as follows:

any blue/white enamel kidney dishes and bowels.

orange rubber tubing 3/8" od.

also any WW2 instruments you may come across, they are usual marked with a government arrow'/|\'.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Phil Haycock

EBME Warwick Hospital

Welcome to the forum, Phil.

"Living History"? What's that, then?

And your "era" is the Second World War ... rather than the Crimean War? After all (as you must know) the RAMC and its forebears have been about since the army began! I guess there must be a moral in that somewhere.

By the way, the WD "arrow" mark you mention doesn't necessarily indicate an item from WWII. It has certainly been used since then (and, I believe before the Great War), and could well still be used today, for all I know.

Since 1855 by the look of it! But I read somewhere that the "broad arrow" mark was found on artifacts from the "Mary Rose" (which sank in 1545)! See also this piece about WD Boundary Stones (and there I was thinking that BS stood for something else entirely)!

Having worked in the Design Department at the now defunct Royal Ordnance Factory in Nottingham , I recall every sheet of toilet paper being printed with the WD Arrow ( on the shiny side!)

Geoff , both you and I are pieces of "living history" from an era long past!

So that's why you had arrows on your [censored] then, Terry!

Mate (as I may have mentioned before), the past is all this once great country now has left!

Hi Geoff,

'Living History'that where people like myself who have an interest in a period of history,in my case World War 2, put on displays at weekend shows for the public. My interest has always been British Army World War 2 and recently Royal Army Medical Corps. I protray a medical orderly from 181 Airlanding Field Ambulance at Arnhem. We use our interest to educate people about the war and to remember those who died in war, which ever country they are from.

The reason for mentioning the WD 'arrow' is because it seems that after the war when the NHS was formed alot of Army stock of instruments where issue to hospitals and the after that very early period of the NHS the instruments where maked up as 'H.M.Govt.'.

The WD arrow is the armies ordnance mark to say it is our's and yes it seems to have been used on a large scale from about 1855.

You're not ex-23 PFA, then?

You can get the orange rubber tubing from Fisher Scientific. We use it for making the odd "thing" up. It doesn't last more than a couple of years though

I was wondering about these. Wouldn't they have generally tended to be stainless steel from the First World War onwards?

However, I have (in the past) come across enamelled spittoons amongst the ruins of a sanatorium. The same place, in fact, where Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) was a patient in 1949. Now, there's a bit of history for you!

Didn't Christie use Orange Tubing to gas and strangle his victims?

As to the enamel bowls -- they were much cheaper to produce in crap quality steel with an enamel coating - stainless was better utilised for the needs of the Royal Flying Corps.
Harping back again to my happy days at the Royal Ordnance Factory in Nottingham -- the Medical Officer and his staff always had stacks of enamelled bowls , spitoons etc in the surgery -- all stamped with the WD arrow.

Don't tell me, Terry ... it was you who made 'em!

And I imagine that Christie just didn't have any "anti-static" tubing to hand (probably a little too rigid for his purposes, perhaps).

But casting my mind back to my own happy (army) days, I don't recall seeing any enamelled bowls and the like in medical use. Perhaps us "front line" bods only got sent the best kit! Just like today's blokes, eh?