Miss MARY (DAFFODIL) CHRISTINE BROOKS

Mary, the only daughter of the local solicitor, James Lane Brooks of Lamb, Brooks and Bullock and Mary, née Harris was born on 28 February 1986 in Odiham.  She had four brothers, Henry James, who survived the war and was awarded the Military Cross and Distinguished Service Order, Gerald Harris and Robert (Bobby) Courtenay.  The family lived in the Long House in the High Street.  At the outbreak of war, Mary’s father became chairman of the Local Recruiting Committee, which had a Recruiting Officer in the High Street^[1] and, after the war, chairman of the War Memorial Committee.

During the war Mary did voluntary work^[2], initially at Tylney Hall Hospital, which had opened in October 1914 and closed at the end of October 1915.  There were 50 beds in the hospital and patients were received from the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot.  It specialised in surgical operations^[3].  From October 1916 Mary helped at the Church Institute Canteen at Littlemoor Camp, near Weymouth.  It was while she was working in this voluntary capacity that she celebrated her 2st birthday, contracting influenza on the same day^[4].  She developed complications and was admitted to Casterbridge Nursing Home, St Peter, Dorchester, where she died of acute nephritis and cerebral thrombosis on 6 March 1917^[5].  Mary is buried in Odiham Cemetery.