Tue Jun 26 2007 21:08 PST "The greatest imaginable blessing" : short hair and images of counter-femininity:
Short hair was common on the Balkan front, where the work was more rigorous and the environment harsher. Emslie wrote in her diary, "All [the "Khaki Girls"] have short hair, which is the envy of our unit, all of whom are still unshorn." This was possibly the inspiration for what happened later. While waiting in Salonika Bay, Emslie wrote that she "cut the hair of nearly all the unit." No one seemed to mind, including "Edith Harley, whose beautiful long hair I was loathe to sacrifice," except for one nurse who had "only twopenny-worth of Nature's crowning glory, but as I was half through she called out in her lovely highland voice: 'Oh, my good hair, my good hair, please don't cut it off!'" Although most of Emslie's unit had been doing war work in the south of France for six months or longer, it was when they were sent to Salonika that they felt the need to cut their hair.