Yolanda Vitolins arrived in Scotland as a refugee from Latvia before the outbreak of the Second world war, her father was a heart surgeon and her mother a bio-chemist. She went into the field of mental health and worked for many years at the Royal Edinburgh hospital, supervising subsequent Social Study students.
The signature belongs to Derek Stuart, a blind student who also suffered from the effects of polio. Despite the course director’s initial reservations, Derek was admitted to the course and did very well. He graduated in 1949 and received a glowing report from his placement with the Society for Teaching the Blind to Read at their Own Homes.
Stephanie Tobias, was another refugee, she was a teacher with a young family in Budapest and fled with them to the UK following the Soviet occupation of Hungary. The quote is from a reference supplied with her application.
The typed extract [click on image for larger view] is from the correspondence of Freda Patience Wilson. Originally from Scone, Freda was severely wounded in an air raid in Plymouth and had to give up her nursing studies. However, she returned to Scotland for treatment and encouraged by her doctor she enrolled on the Social Study course. She had lost an eye, both her legs had been broken and she suffered extensive damage to her hand. After graduating she worked as an almoner and wrote to course director Nora Milnes that she saw a lot to recommend the nationalization of hospitals. Freda eventually went to work with the Amis des Volontaires Francais in Falaise, an organization which helped with thepost-war reconstruction of France.