THE UK, Scottish and Welsh governments have spent tens of millions of pounds on so-called Nightingale hospitals, some of which may never be used. Hopefully that will be the case, as it will mean this damned virus is finally being overcome, but questions persist.

Did we have to build these Nightingales at such expense? Why did the various governments not do what the wartime governments did in 1914-18 and 1939-45 and simply requisition stately homes and country houses?

The establishment of auxiliary hospitals, as they were widely known, in requisitioned properties in both world wars was the response from the then UK government to the actual and anticipated casualties. In 1914, as soon as they realised the war wasn’t going to be over by Christmas, the government drew up an ambitious plan to cater for the casualties that began as a trickle from Belgium and France, and then became a tsunami from the various theatres of war – the Western and Eastern Fronts, Gallipoli, the Middle East, the Balkans and the high seas, especially after the Battle of Jutland. By the end of the war, there were auxiliary hospitals in every corner of the Scottish mainland, some 180 of them in total, in addition to acute care and military hospitals, the best known of which was Craiglockhart psychiatric hospital in Edinburgh – about which more later.

Unusually, today’s column is not about people or events but about places, because I think that people should know about a largely forgotten piece of Scottish medical history. I am pretty sure that neither Boris Johnson or Nicola Sturgeon have the stomach for requisitioning stately homes in this annus horribilis, hence the “pop up” Nightingales, and of course there is one huge difference between the medical landscape of 1914 and 1939 and now – our wonderful NHS.

Back then it was all private and charity hospitals, even for acute care, with the armed forces having their own facilities, but governments, led first of all by Herbert Asquith and then David Lloyd George in WWI, and Neville Chamberlain followed by Winston Churchill in WWII, took robust steps to deal with the lack of hospitals – they “nationalised” all manner of stately homes and country estates, turning them into auxiliary hospitals. Some home owners donated their properties without question, but many were requisitioned under law, due usually to their proximity to existing hospitals.

Downton Abbey fans will recognise the storyline from the second series. I am assured that the depiction of the mayhem caused to the household by being turned into a convalescent hospital was pretty accurate.

Probably the best way to tell the history of this wartime endeavour that undoubtedly saved many lives in Scotland is to tell the story of Pollok House in Glasgow.

It is a mansion that holds a special place in the hearts of all associated with its current owners, the National Trust for Scotland, as the first discussions to form the Trust took place within its walls in 1931.

Set in the scenic Pollok Country Park on the south side of Glasgow, which also houses the Burrell Collection, it was home to the Maxwell family for six centuries. The main part of the present house was built in the mid-18th century and is recognised as an outstanding example of Georgian architecture.

The house was extended in the early 20th century, but the 18th-century features were sympathetically preserved.

The home of the Stirling-Maxwell family at the outbreak of WWI, Pollok House, with its extensive rooms and country grounds, was ideal for becoming a hospital. Its owner, Sir John Stirling-Maxwell, had inherited the house with its stunning art collection, and he would go on to play an important part in the war effort.

According to the NTS, Sir John had already been experimenting with new forestry techniques on his Corrour estate in the Highlands, and he helped create the Forestry Commission to replenish forests depleted by wartime demands. He served as assistant controller of timber for the Commission during the war years. There is a charming story about his daughter Anne. As a young girl during the war, she bred white mice for use by sailors on Royal Navy submarines to warn them of any build-up of toxic gases.

Like so many country houses and stately homes in late 1914, Pollok House was given over by the family as an auxiliary hospital for use by convalescing soldiers. By that stage of the war, Britain knew it was in for many more casualties than originally presumed, and auxiliary hospitals were needed to take the pressure off acute care hospitals, many of which had been overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of wounded coming from the trench warfare on the Western Front.

The idea was that auxiliary hospitals would be used mostly for convalescence, and that’s what happened at Pollok.

Most of the patients at Pollok House came from Stobhill Hospital in the north of the city. Contrary to a popular misconception, it was open to all ranks, not just to officers, though there were other auxiliary hospitals that were reserved for officers in a class-ridden Britain.

The music room and dining room were the first to be converted, with 16 beds being installed. To free up space for more patients, the Stirling-Maxwells moved out and spent part of the war living at Barncluith House in Hamilton.

Lady Ann Christian Maxwell continued to visit her home, going along on some Sundays to play music for the men. During the First World War, Lady Maxwell became president of the British Red Cross. The charity played a vital role collecting homemade knitted hats, scarves, gloves and personal items like soap and shaving kits to send to the men serving in the armed forces.

Yet its work on the home front was truly impressive as most of the auxiliary hospitals nationwide had some Red Cross involvement.

The extraordinary thing about the Stirling-Maxwells is that, like so many Scottish families both wealthy and poor, they had to soldier on after suffering great grief.

Lady Maxwell’s brother, Aymer, was killed by a shell burst in the first few weeks of the war while out ensuring his men were sheltering behind well-fortified positions.

The NTS tells another story about the family, this time with a better outcome: “In a letter home to Sir John, his brother Archie relates that he had been shot four times in the first weeks of the war and been taken prisoner by the Germans who, he said, were treating him well. A telegram from Archie arrived a few weeks later, saying that he had escaped and made his way back to Britain.”

Preserved at Pollok House is a letter from Winston Churchill to the family, and a Red Cross certificate from the then queen mother, Queen Alexandra, acknowledging their help in the war effort.

The NTS is particularly proud of one of its possessions at Pollok House: “On the south wall of the garden beneath the old Bowling Green is a WWI commemoration plaque.

“It commemorates not just the dead, but all 58 men from among the tenants and staff of Nether Pollok Estate who went to war. Twelve men did not return.”

In an eerie portent of modern virus-hit Britain, a superb badge or medallion in heavy silver was struck for the staff who worked at this Auxiliary Hospital – they didn’t have to buy their own, it should be said.

The medal is the work of Hazel Ruthven Armour, a Scottish sculptor, and depicts a voluntary aid detachment nurse tending to a wounded soldier. The medal is named on the rim as being presented to an Agnes Marshall.

Other auxiliary hospitals in Scotland included Drumlanrig Castle, the Dumfriesshire home of the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry, and their main residence at Bowhill.

Even higher in the social ranks than the Duke and Duchess was the late queen mother. As a teenaged Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon she saw her family home, Glamis Castle, turned into an auxiliary hospital.

The Glamis website records: “During the First World War Glamis Castle became a convalescent hospital. Lady Elizabeth’s kindness won her the hearts of many of the soldiers who passed through Glamis.

“On September 16, 1916, two soldiers discovered a fire in a room under the castle roof. As they ran to raise the alarm, the first person they came across was Lady Elizabeth, who showed great presence of mind and immediately telephoned both the local and Dundee fire brigades.

“She then marshalled everyone to fight the fire, organising a chain to convey buckets of water from the river. Later, with the fire raging above them, she organised the removal of the valuables out onto the lawn.”

Other large homes turned into auxiliary hospitals included Hopetoun House near Edinburgh, Blair Castle, Aboyne Castle, and Thirlestane Castle at Lauder.

It was not all stately homes, however. The village hall at Durris in Aberdeenshire became an auxiliary hospital, while the parish house at Cullen also served as a hospital.

In the former county of Dunbartonshire alone there were Craigmaddie in Milngavie, Dumbarton Auxiliary Hospital, Gartshore in Kirkintilloch, Hermitage House in Helensburgh, Schaw Home in Bearsden and Woodlands Auxiliary Hospital in Kilcreggan.

It really was a national effort, with local Red Cross volunteers providing much of the administrative work to get the auxiliary hospitals up and running. Many professional nurses worked in the auxiliary hospitals, but by far the greatest number were members of the voluntary aid detachment, untrained nurses who learned on the job.

Thanks to its fame from the 1991 novel Regeneration by Pat Barker, and the subsequent film of that novel, Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh is probably the most famous of the Scottish wartime requisitioned hospitals.

We know who its most famous patients were and we know what work went on there, unlike most auxiliary hospitals – there are precious few first-hand accounts about them.

Craiglockhart had been a hydropathic institute at the outset of the war, but the British army decided that it was better to try and save the sanity of shell-shocked soldiers rather than just shoot them out of hand.

In 1916 Craiglockhart was turned into a military psychiatric hospital that generally treated officers suffering from shell shock.

Among those treated were the war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Sassoon’s book Sherston’s Progress is a thinly disguised account of his time at Craiglockhart, to which he was sent for authoring an anti-war letter, though the diagnosis was officially “neurasthenia”.

Owen became the editor of the hospital’s own magazine and Sassoon greatly encouraged him to write more poetry. Both came under the expert guidance of Dr W H Rivers, who became close friends with Sassoon in particular. Owen, on the other hand, recovered and was sent back to the front. He was killed one week short of the Armistice.

Craiglockhart and all the auxiliary hospitals did valiant service during both world wars. We thought we would never need them again.

Hubris, thy name is homo sapiens.