Cavell first worked as a governess for a family in Brussels, then became a nurse. By 1911, she was training nurses for three hospitals, 24 schools and 13 kindergartens in Belgium. She was a brisk, businesslike, rather straight-laced woman with a high crown of graying hair and gray eyes.
Her sense of duty bordered on the fanatical, and she demanded the highest standards from her pupil nurses. She kept a watch before her at breakfast; any girl more than two minutes late would be ordered to work an extra two hours. She was often "cold, distant and aloof," according to one of her staff.
In August 1914, Cavell was spending a short holiday with her mother, who was then living in Norwich after her husband's death. Edith was weeding her mother's back garden when she heard the dramatic news that Germany had invaded Belgium. "I am needed more than ever," she said, and immediately left for the Continent. Her mother never saw her again.
Cavell and her staff were hard at work at the training school in the suburbs of Brussels when the German army occupied the city. All 60 British nurses were ordered home, but Edith somehow remained behind. German nurses arrived to replace the British nurses and, together with all the remaining Belgian girls, were sent out to hospitals in the city as required.
It was contrary to Cavell's nature to refuse help to anyone in distress, and Boger and Meachin were hidden in the institute for two weeks. When Cavell heard that the Germans were going to search the building, she ordered Sister White to take the soldiers to an empty house in nearby Avenue Louise. Sister White then came under German suspicion and wisely decided to leave the country. Just before Christmas 1914, she crossed the Dutch frontier--carrying military information for the British, obtained by Colonel Boger, hidden in her underclothes.
� Later in 1881, Edith is thought to have spent a few months at Norwich High School,
� From sixteen to nineteen years old, Edith went to three boarding schools; Kensington (possibly St. Margaret's, Bushey - a school for poor clergy families), Clevedon, near Bristol, where she was confirmed (15th March 1884) and finally Laurel Court, Peterborough, in the Cathedral precincts where she learnt to become a pupil teacher.
� she took several jobs as a governess. Her first job was to look after a clergy household in Steeple Bumpstead.
�