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Margaret made her smile seeht never see any of theie, I’ll go through your drawers upstairs See if there’s anything I can darn for you I know you’re not the best with a needle, and we’ll want you to look as nice as pie when you see Joe again’

You were not to resent theazine had said You had toyou fro the basket across the room with the saaret shut her eyes and breathed deeply as Letty’s voice echoed across the laundry rooht fix up a few of your father’s shirts, while I’ a bit tired, and I wouldn’t want anyone saying I don’t’ She shot a sideways look at Margaret ‘I’ll ’s shipshape here Oh, yes You won’t need to worry about a thing’

Margaret didn’t want to think of them on their own Better this way than with soie?’

‘Mm?’

‘Do you thinkdo you think your father will mind about it? I mean, about me?’ Letty’s face was suddenly anxious, her forty-five-year-old features as open as those of a young bride

Afterwards, on the aret wasn’t sure what had made her say it She wasn’t a mean person She didn’t want either Letty or her father to be lonely, after all

‘I think he’ll be delighted,’ she said, reaching down to her little dog ‘He’s very fond of you, Letty, as are the boys’ She looked down and coughed, exa the splinter on her hand ‘He’s often said he looks on you likea kind of sister Someone who can talk to him about Mum, who remembers what she was likeAnd, of course, if you’re washing their shirts for theratitude’ For some reason it was impossible to look up but she are of the acute stillness of Letty’s skirts, of her thin, strong legs, as she stood a few feet away Her hands, habitually active, hung ainst her apron

‘Yes,’ Letty said at last ‘Of course’ There was a slight choke in her voice ‘Well As I said I’ll – I’ll go and aroos – both only 12 months out of the pouch – which will fly to London shortlywill eat 12 lb of hay en route Qantas Earoos would spend only 63 hours in the air

Sydney Morning Herald, 4 July 1946

Three weeks to euess what – I’m on! I know you won’t believe it, as I hardly can myself, but it’s true Daddy had a ith one of his old friends at the Red Cross, who has so I had orders saying I’ve got a place on the next boat out, even though, strictly speaking, I should be low priority

I had to tell the other brides back at horandmother, to prevent a riot, but now I’ to nip on board before the, I can’t wait to see you I’ve ot our new ho to travel on the new Qantas ‘Kangaroo’ service – did you know you can get to London in only 63 hours flying on a Lancastrian? She has asked me to ask you for your s once I’ once they’veup in solish field sonature, and re used to the sight of a wedding band ona proper honey as I’ll be with you I’ll end now, as I’ the afternoon at the A out what I’ll need for the trip The Aet all sorts, unlike us poor British wives (Isn’t it a gas,that?) Mind you, if I have to listen to one more rendition of ‘When The Boy Froi’ I think I shall sprout wings and fly to you myself Take care my love, and write as soon as you have a moment

Your Avice

In the four years since its inception the Aant white stucco house on the edge of the Royal Botanic Gardens, initially to help girls who had travelled from Perth or Canberra to while away the endless weeks before they were allowed a passage to ht theled Banner’, and offered a little , and those who could not decide whether they were paralysed with fear at the thought of the journey or at the idea that they would never make it

Latterly the club had ceased to be American in character: the previous year’s US War Brides Act had hastened the departure of its twelve thousand newly claie afternoons and advice on how to cope with British food and rationing

Many of the young brides who now attended were lodged with fahurst or the suburbs They were in a strange hinterland, their lives in Australia not yet over and those elsewhere not begun, their focus on the minutiae of a future they knew little about and could not control It was perhaps unsurprising that on the biweekly occasions that they irl I know froot to travel over on the Queen Mary in a first-class cabin,’ a bespectacled girl was saying The liner had been held up as the holy grail of transport Letters were still arriving in Australia with tales of her glory ‘She said she spent al herself by the pool She said there were dinner-dances, party gaot thewas she had to share with soers all over her clothes, and up at five thirty in thewhen the baby started to wail’

‘Children are a blessing,’ said Mrs Proffit, benignly, as she checked the stitching of a green hat on a brooollenfor the Boirls had been sent a book called Useful Hints frolish mother-in-law, and Mrs Proffit had written out instructions on how to s, and a bed-jacket fro ‘Yes,’ she said, glancing fondly at the’

‘No children is irl next to Avice, accoe

In other times, Avice would not have spent five irls – soht off some outback station with red dust on their shoes – or, indeed, have wasted so ed spinsters who had seized upon the war as a way to enliven what had probably been dismal lives But she had been in Sydney for almost ten days noith her father’s friend, Mr Burton, the only person she knew there, and the Wives’ Club had become her only point of social contact (She still wasn’t sure how to explain Mr Burton’s behaviour to her father She had had to tell the man no less than four times that she was a married woman, and she wasn’t entirely sure that as far as he was concerned thatwo; few had spent more than a week at a time with their husbands, and more than half had not seen them for the best part of a year The shipment home of troops was a priority; the ‘wallfloives’, as they had become knoere not Some had filed their papers over a year previously and heard little since At least one, tiring of her dreary lodgings, had given up and gone home The rest stayed on, fuelled by blind hope, desperation, love or, into their tales of the families hom they were billeted, she had silently thanked her parents for the opulence of her hotel acco if she had been forced to stay with soru by the day

‘If that Mrs Tidworth says to me one more ti for her’