Edward Ferguson

British Ambassador to Serbia

“People like Dr. Elsie Inglis, have been people who express their charity, and all these that have been done by these such people, represent the new milestones of our mutual connections, I approve totally the name of Dr. Elsie Inglis, the women of true grace. We can’t comprehend the size of their deeds in the First World War.”

 

Iris Thompson

speaking about her late relative Elsie Inglis

“I think it’s really important to create media and series, and things like that about Elsie Inglis, because people need to know the fight that people give and how strong people are, women are and the way that people were treated in the past, women especially.” 

Col. Nick Ilic, MBE

British Army Officer

“I was the British defence attaché here in Serbia […] I spent a lot of time visiting the various memorials to the Scottish Women’s hospitals and laying wreaths on their death anniversaries and that’s how I became interested in Elsie Inglis.

And of course, she was a part of the suffrage movement. She felt passionately about women’s rights. She’s a pioneering doctor, somebody who wanted to demonstrate that women were actually able to do this.

Olga Stanojlovic, MBE

Chair of the Serbian Council of Britain

[we] try and tell the story of the Scottish Women’s Hospital in Britain, because whereas they are remembered very well in Serbia, the story in [the] UK is hardly known. And so I feel it is my duty as a British Serb to really tell the story of these amazing women who did so much for the Serbian people and for women in general.” 

Dr. Tony Waterston

Retd. consultant paediatrician, speaking about his great great aunt Dr. Elsie Inglis

“…the suffragist movement working for the women’s vote. She’d been the secretary of that movement in Scotland, and she knew these women so well who were fighting for women’s votes around the country. When I was in Serbia, looking at the hospital, it’s about 5 or 6 years ago. We thought afterwards, there needs to be a film about this. When I heard today that a film is being made, I was very, very pleased.

Carole Powell

speaking about her grandfather and the nurse Agnes who was buried next to him in Serbia

I had the most emotional trip, I wanted to say to my great grandfather, you were much, much loved. Your daughter was heart broken when you died. She waited at the end of the road for months, and you never came back. My mom, your granddaughter, died on the day we visited your grave. But the thing that comforts me is I’ve now seen the hospital at Vranje where you died. I’ve seen the river where you helped those refugees across. You didn’t have to do any of that. You volunteered to help the strangers. If you came home, everybody’s life would be enriched for the better. But you did that out of goodness and kindness.” 

Dr. Clea Thompson

Chartered Clinical Child Psychologist, speaking about her great great great aunt Elsie Inglis

“She was one of the first female surgeons in, Edinburgh and Scotland. And she had a real struggle to be taught by her lecturers because some of them wouldn’t teach her. But there were some people who taught her in lunchtimes, some of the lecturers and she was very supported by her dad to decide to become a female doctor at a time that was really difficult.

Mrs Žarko Vuković

speaking about Elsie Inglis and her husbands work on the SWH

My husband (Dr Žarko Vuković) had devoted 30 years of his life in research of the facts on Scottish Women’s Hospital during the First World War. Allied Medical Mission to Serbia, 1915. More, he wrote about all nations that have been [involved]. But he was more fascinated with the Scottish Women’s Hospital and Elsie Inglis […] and she really was very much devoted to Serbian people and has done a lot, not only here in Mladanovec but organising throughout Serbia, the hospitals. And she stayed with the Serbs till the end when she was back to England.” 

Mary Kenyon

A Scottish nurse

I trained in Edinburgh at the Western General, and, we all knew the Elsie Inglis Hospital. And we knew her connection to, improving care for women and children. So this was of great interest to us. However, now I actually understand what Elsie Inglis did in Serbia, how she set up hospitals in Paris, in London […] I think it’s hugely important that, the stories of Elsie Inglis and her colleagues, are raised in profile through social media, through films. So that, people can have access to the stories and really understand what these women did and what they were fighting for.”

Librarian at Kensington and Chelsea Libraries, London

For the last 10,15 years. I have been really doing hard work on, women in foreign medical missions who were, during the Great War, risking their lives in Serbia and on other fronts. My favourite one out of the whole of that is Doctor Elsie Inglis. […] It’s essential that we really learn about the history and about these brave women who, tried to combine suffrage”

Fiona Garwood

Writer and campaigner

When she died back in Scotland, having been evacuated from Archangel in Russia, it enormously testify to women’s resilience and strength that she and her fellow nurses and doctors, drivers, ambulance drivers, cooks, clerks, administrators, radiographers all came out here with their equipment and supported by the British people, and they raised an amazing amount of money so that the units out here [Serbia] could have all the things they needed in medical supplies, blankets, all the things you need for nursing […] And sadly, they lost, they had to leave some of them behind during the retreat of the Albanian mountains. But a huge testament to the power and the strength of these women over a 100 years ago.” 

Gordana Jupp

Cultural Event Organiser

“I’ve had the great honour and privilege to, in the recent years, find out a lot more about the Scottish nurses who came to Serbia, gave their lives and devoted themselves to nursing, not only Serbian, but other nationalities. I think the idea of having a film showing the lives of Elsie Inglis and many other nurses, in the First World War, I don’t think enough people really know about it.”

Lizzie Johnston

Social worker

Elsie Inglis, who has subsequently become a mirror of a social, part of social history of the era, and of the era of the Great War and, beyond and before. In consequence, I feel that it is a really important Film that needs to be made, on behalf of everybody concerned, the country’s first Great Britain and Serbia and other parts of the world. Medical history will go forward, more importantly, it’s the social history of what she did and what she represented at a time when it was very important.

Scottish Social worker

I mean, the film will be about Elsie Inglis, which ‘Iram’ is making, which is a fabulous idea. But she had the idea before this trip was thought up, she was the originator of this, her own idea, which is wonderful […] and I mean, these are all ladies who sometimes left children at home, left their professions, or that they came from slightly wealthy families. I think because they were able to do this and to find the money from their friends I think because they were able to do this and to find the money from their friends […] to get to Serbia in 1914, just to help basically. And they had such sanitary ideas and they knew how to disinfect everything, because it’s sort of embed in Britain to to do things that way.”

A Serbian Tour Guide

I have to say that I didn’t know too much about it at that time but I did remember that we had visited the fountain in Mladenovac, that’s where we are standing right now. And I said, wasn’t she together with some other women, a member of medical missions that came during World War I to Serbia And she said, oh my God, you know more than we some people in Scotland do.”

Angela Tunstall

Retired Sales and Marketing Director

so few other people seem to have ever heard of her, even in Scotland. And she was such an inspirational woman to all women in the UK, but especially to Scottish women. And she did so much for us building hospitals, not only, of course, for us, because she was in Serbia, and built hospitals over there and managed them and gave her life really to helping the Serbs In the First World War […] So, I mean, making a film or a TV series or any, you know, publicity which is really, really important for getting her name known

Linda McDonald

Museums and Galleries Volunteer in Edinburgh

“I think it’s really important to create media and series.. about Elsie Inglis because people need to know the fight that people give and how strong people are and how they linked together surgery and suffrage in order to try and persuade the people at that time to get their rights.”