Any bright ideas?
 

This is a photocard I found many years ago, it is so obviously taken on board a ship, but my thoughts run out about there. Any comments or bright ideas would be good to have, of however trivial a nature.

This is a nurse, possibly on a sailing ship. Nurses wore that type of uniform in the past.

There you go, I confess I have looked at that photo for ages and never thought of that, but you are right. A good thought.

There were troop ships retuning to Canada with wounded soldiers after the First World War. I once did research about Dr. Frank Porter Patterson, who was involved. I'll look it up.
However, the nursing uniform reminds me more of English Nursing Sisters.
Here's a bit of Canadian history that might be similar:
Nursing Sisters Kathleen G. Christie and Anna May Waters were sent out to Hong Kong in 1941. The British hospital they were working at was taken over by the Japanese and they were sent to Stanley Internment Camp. They continued to care for injured Canadian soldiers in spite of the lack of food and medical supplies, ill-treatment from their captors, and the threat of tropical diseases. Waters reportedly made soup in a steel helmet because she had nothing else to use. When a letter from Christie to her father finally arrived in 1943, it was almost two years old at this point. It was about their time at the hospital before Hong Kong fell. The two were repatriated during a prisoner of war exchange in December 1943. After recuperating in Winnipeg, Waters rejoined her unit. She worked abroad the TSS Letitia, one of two Canadian hospital ships that were staffed by all women, and served in both the Atlantic and Pacific war theatres. Source: Christie, Kathleen G. (2001) “Report by Miss Kathleen G. Christie, Nurse with the Canadian Forces at Hong Kong, as Given on Board the SS Gripsholm November 1943,” Canadian Military History, Vol. 10: 4, 4. Accessed from: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol10/iss4/4

Perhaps, also vaguely possible that the lady in the photo was a nurse maid to an infant offspring of a wealthy passenger. I'll go along with the sailing ship as the tackle held by the nurse seems to be the brace of a yard arm, or the sheet of a staysail or jib?

I vote for Tom's explanation.

Thank you for all suggestions and comments, it will make the photo a real source for thought and speculation. I just really like the woman's face and cheerful pose, I had got the sailing ship thing firmly in my mind. Following the rope in the tackle she is holding, what has happened to the end of it? It seems to stop at her hand. The lower part of the right hand side of the photo seems to show the cheeky peeping toe of a deck chair. Thanks for all answers, anyone else got any ideas?

Yes, Farmer John, the cheerful face and pose, the deckchair, they all tie in with Tom's theory of a nurse maid to wealthy family.

This is traditional nursing uniform of the era possibly 19th century. Not sure if a nurse maid would wear the same uniform as a trained nurse, although all nurses in those days would have worked for the wealthy known today as private care. Even when I worked at sea as a nurse we were private. My ship was British, but we were not part of the NHS. So it is possible a nurse on sailing ships looked after all passengers and crew as myself and colleagues did. And my uniform was starched, just like nurses starched uniforms of yesteryear. When in whites, my trousers would stand up on their own :jester:

I don't think the part of the tackle stops at her hand, but rather that there not being a lot of tension on the tackle, she is holding two parts together, with the one part to the left of her hand being hidden behind the other part. Not uncommon practise to hold to parts together to stop them from running as the directional force of each part would cancel the travel ---- if you see what I mean? :)

To state the obvious:

She is definitively looking happy!

The basket work/wicker chair would suggest she is on passenger ship?

What about the stuff behind her? Looks like cables? But maybe not?

Is the structure behind her for an awning of some sort?

Possibly a steam ship with derricks?

I leave better informed people to reply!

McC