Footnotes

Elsie Gledstanes was an accomplished painter in oil, pastel, watercolour and tempera of figure groups, portraits and landscapes. She was born in Ealing, and studied art in Paris before enrolling at the Slade School of Fine Art, and later at the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Vicat Cole School.

During World War I, Gledstanes served in the Women's Royal Naval Service and during World War II she worked as an auxiliary ambulance driver and as a driver for the Women's Legion. During both wars she painted and sketched individual and group portraits of other women active on war duties and several of these pictures are held by the Imperial War Museum and Royal Air Force Museum.

The present work (housed in the artist's own hand painted frame), is one of three depicting the same subject, painted by Gledstanes circa 1940, showing three women ambulance drivers in the mess room of their temporary auxiliary fire station in London, at 39a Crawford Street, identified by Sarah Holdaway of the Imperial War Museum, London, where the two other works in the series are held. In this painting the three drivers while away the time, waiting to be called out. One reads the newspaper, another reads notices on the board behind, and the third glances over the shoulder of the seated driver whilst holding a cigarette. Hanging on the wall are the paraphernalia of their daily life; waterproof jackets, water bottles, and Zuckerman helmets, which had been specifically designed for civil defence corps. The White helmet on the floor ('A' indicating Ambulance) by the seated figure indicates that she was of higher rank and a supervisory officer. Gledstanes' signature is cleverly placed on the strap of what is probably the officer's gas mask bag, just to the right of this.

By late 1940, the ambulance service was in crisis, facing a severe shortage of male drivers as many had been called up for military service. Those ex-army officers who remained were often judged unfit or unsuited to the demanding conditions of ambulance work. A determined recruitment drive brought a significant influx of women drivers, and their numbers grew rapidly.