Item 01: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett diary, 1915-1917 - Page 206

[Page 206]

     Thursday November 4th to Friday November 19th
The whole of this period I spent in bed at 17 Park unable to do any work and bored to death, my only amusement being to read books. It had been arranged that I should start lecturing again on Monday November 22nd, and I determined to get well by this date. I was allowed to see visitors, but that was my sole respite. This home is the most extraordinary one of its kind ever started. Doctor Shields is an Australian, and one of the greatest surgeons of the day. In the height of the boom in the late eighties in Australia, there ws a man called Harold Fink known as "Shilling the Pound" Fink. He made a huge fortune, and then lost it all again, in the collapse, and went smash, paying one shilling in the pound. As a matter of fact he got away with most of the stuff, and left his widow extremely wealthy.

They had one son, who was consumptive, but Shields managed to keep him alive for several years. The widow to show her gratitude founded this home, which is known as the Harold Fink Private Hospital, and Shields has the complete control of it. Before the war it was extremly fashionable and very expensive. Ladies wishing to get away from their husbands and see other friends used to go there for a rest cure, and another frequent occupant was old Lady Limerick, when she was suffering from one of her periodical attacks of D.Ts. The place had in fact rather a bad reputation, for it was said that dances, theatrical entertainments used to be held in it, and that you could be cheerful and thoroughly amused right up to the moment of your death Since the war however, it has been turned into a military hospital for officers, and the skill of Shields and Friff has raised its reputation high, so that it is the most eagerly sought after of all the private hospitals. There are 25 regular nurses, and allthe rest of the work