Denaby Nurse in Cyprus – Only Able To Go Out With Armed Escort

June 1956

South Yorkshire Times, June 23rd, 1956

Denaby Nurse in Cyprus
Only Able To Go Out With Armed Escort

An attractive 22-years-old Denaby girl is one of a handful of members of the W.R.A.F. stationed in Cyprus.

She is Leading Aircraft Women Sheila Bright, of 70, Balby Street, Denaby, who is a nurse at the Military Hospital in the R.A.F. Compound at Nicosia.

From Egypt

The second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Bright, Sheila has been in the Middle East for 18 month – the past two months being spent at Nicosia. She was stationed in Egypt prior to moving to Cyprus.

Her mother told a ‘South Yorkshire Times’ reporter on Monday that Sheila had told her not to worry about her safety. In her most recent letter Sheila stated that she could not say much except for the fact that being in the W.R.A.F. is their safeguard.

‘We are not allowed out unless we have an armed escort. We are pretty safe. It is the poor security guards who get it and we don’t do guards’, Sheila wrote.

However, Sheila is looking forward to the end of this year when she will be leaving the island on the expiration of her period of service. She has not yet decided whether or not to sign on again, but she will definitely continue nursing.

Keeps to Compound

She is more or less confined to the compound and her mother has to send her clothing and other things which she cannot purchase as the N.A.A.F.I stores. Sheila, a convert to Roman Catholicism, cannot get home for her leaves, and hopes to visit Jerusalem for a leave period shortly.

An old student of Conisbrough Northcliffe Girls’ Modern School, she worked for a time at a Mexborough clothing factory until joining the Service in 1952. She has passed all her nursing examinations in the W.R.A.F and signed on for a further period of one year so that she could go abroad.

Service life seems to be in the blood of the Bright family. Her father, Mr. George Bright, 44 years a miner at Cadeby Colliery, served for four years with the South Wales Borderers in the first World War. He was one of 80 survivors out of 1,000 men who took part in Battle of Cambria at Bourion Wood in France. He was also a keen boxer while in the Army, winning the 119th Briage Welter Weight boxing championship.