| From May 1917 Ruth was excited to be one of seven Australian women to run a YWCA canteen for the Australian Infantry in France; she would later write that she missed the work dreadfully.(([British] National Archives,WO 372/23 - Women's Services. Distinguished Conduct Medals and Military Medals, Medal Card of Murray-Prior, Ruth A. Corps: Young Mens Christian Association, notes that she was in France from May 1917; M-P family papers, NLA, set 17/40 and Box 4, folder 26.)) One soldier visited the canteen at Rouelles near Le Havre. He was a keen (ok, fanatical) chess player and ruefully remembered patronisingly agreeing to play a game of chess with her. After he had been decisively beaten a number of times, he realised he had to play the very best he could if he had any chance of winning. Ruth could, he wrote, stand for the goddess of chess, [[wp>Caïssa|Caissa]] herself.(((New Zealand) //Evening Star//, 22 March 1930, p.26.)) Her experience at the canteen reinforced her dislike of the rigidity of the British class system. In October 1917 Ruth wrote that the Australian army 'had an exceeding hard & bitter path ahead', mostly because the men were too thoughtful and intelligent for the 'fetish' of blind obedience'.((M-P family papers, NLA, Box 4, folder 26.)) Writing from the YWCA canteen in France a month later, she referred to her 'socialist blood boil[ing] red' due to injustice, and described herself in a way that showed she did not share her father's concern to re-establish the family's gentry status: 'me, the red-blooded plebeian me'.((M-P family papers, NLA, Box 4, folder 26.))\\ | From May 1917 Ruth was excited to be one of seven Australian women to run a YWCA canteen for the Australian Infantry in France; she would later write that she missed the work dreadfully.(([British] National Archives,WO 372/23 - Women's Services. Distinguished Conduct Medals and Military Medals, Medal Card of Murray-Prior, Ruth A. Corps: Young Mens Christian Association, notes that she was in France from May 1917; M-P family papers, NLA, set 17/40 and Box 4, folder 26.)) One soldier visited the canteen at Rouelles near Le Havre. He was a keen (ok, fanatical) chess player and ruefully remembered patronisingly agreeing to play a game of chess with her. After he had been decisively beaten a number of times, he realised he had to play the very best he could if he had any chance of winning. Ruth could, he wrote, stand for the goddess of chess, [[wp>Caïssa|Caissa]] herself.(((New Zealand) //Evening Star//, 22 March 1930, p.26.)) Her experience at the canteen reinforced her dislike of the rigidity of the British class system. In October 1917 Ruth wrote that the Australian army 'had an exceeding hard & bitter path ahead', mostly because the men were too thoughtful and intelligent for the 'fetish' of blind obedience'.((M-P family papers, NLA, Box 4, folder 26.)) Writing from the YWCA canteen in France a month later, she referred to her 'socialist blood boil[ing] red' due to injustice, and described herself in a way that showed she did not share her father's concern to re-establish the family's gentry status: 'me, the red-blooded plebeian me'.((M-P family papers, NLA, Box 4, folder 26.))\\ |
| Her war work did not end with the war. In Christmas 1918 she was still in France, helping YMCA officers organise entertainment for the soldiers. She was described at one of three women living in "Mildura Hut". ((//The Digger : Australian Bases France//, 1:22, 29 December 1918)) | Her war work did not end with the war. In Christmas 1918 she was still in France, helping YMCA officers organise entertainment for the soldiers. She was described at one of three women living in "Mildura Hut".((//The Digger: Australian Bases France//, 1:22, 29 December 1918)) |