Padre Arthur Ernest White held the first dawn ANZAC service in Australia at St John’s Church, Albany, in 1930. He was a young Anglican chaplain who was injured while serving on the Western front and consequently repatriated home. In 1918 he celebrated a Requiem Mass for the Battle Dead at the altar of St John’s. In 1929 he became the Minister of St John’s. Incidents recalled by the fictitious Matron, Sister Matthews, Tom Warding and Dad (with the exception of his time on Salisbury Plain) were experienced and recorded in various journals and letters home from personnel serving overseas in France.
I MUST THANK MY SISTER NORMA SAMUEL, WHO encouraged me in the writing of this book and was, in addition, an invaluable source of medical information. My good friend, Claire Menkens, unearthed numerous references to the times and appropriated her friend’s The Australian Household Guide (E.S. Wigg & Son Limited, Perth 1916) which I kept for an unconscionably long time and thank Pam Parrish most sincerely for her generosity in allowing me to do so. My son and daughter-in-law were ever supportive of the undertaking.
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