Finding Mum

Speaking at book clubs I am sometimes asked whether I find the research element of writing historical fiction tedious. I reply, “Never.” Research can send the writer down a warren of tunnels, the difficult part is knowing when to stop scrabbling. To decide which facts are inviolate, which snippets of information will add colour and depth to one’s characters, which descriptions of a place are integral to the story. Then the fiction is sifted around the facts like thousands of grains of sand to eventually form a beach.

I am in the throes – no, I’m lying – I’ve just started writing the first draft of my next book with the working title of Annie’s Day. I’m fortunate to have a provisional contract with my publisher, Vine Leaves Press, as long as I get the manuscript to them by June 2024 so, as winter draws in around me and the initial flurry of decorating a new home is over, I no longer have an excuse not to get to work.

Annie’s Day has been nibbling at the back of my mind for many years. It will be loosely based on some of my mother’s wartime experiences as an Australian Army Nurse posted to New Guinea in 1943. (Mum was also in Singapore as it fell to the Japanese in February 1942 but that is a period about which much has been written.) Facts gleaned from her war records, occasional reminisces brought to the fore when she returned to live in Papua New Guinea in 1973, and photos have all given me a bedrock from which to start. 

I am currently reading Phillip Bradley’s monumental book, D-Day New Guinea. It is one of a number I have read about the WWII conflict sometimes skimmed over by historians, in favour of the other battles in the South Pacific. Australian forces, along with American, were instrumental in the defence of New Guinea, the last line of defence before Australia. New Guinea, then, and now as Papua New Guinea, has an inhospitable and brutal terrain. Mountains swathed in mist that test the best of pilots, rivers and coastlines swamped by crocodiles— fresh and saltwater, razor sharp grasses and, during the war, a native population not always on the side of the Allies. There is a quote, a Japanese military saying, on the back flyleaf of the book, “Java is heaven, Burma is hell, but you never come back alive from New Guinea.”

An afternoon of grim reading had me, once again, in awe of my mother. She did not suffer fools gladly, could have a sharp tongue, but her compassion for those in pain could never be doubted. She smoked for most of her life. She had two glasses of whisky each and every night until she died – Christmas Eve 2005. She was a good dancer, an excellent driver, couldn’t sing a note, and was often the last to leave a party. She was a loving if, at times, tough mum.

Amongst her papers I found photos of her, sometimes in fatigues, sometimes in a crisp uniform complete with hat, and sometimes in more traditional nursing garb. A number of years ago I found a photograph of her leaving Singapore aboard the SS Empire Star. Perhaps now there would be more, and so I delved into the world hidden in my computer.

Today, when I entered, “Ida Arundel Morse, NFX7686”, up came two new photos. Both taken on August 8th, 1944 at the 111th Australian Casualty Clearing Station at Alexishafen. Mum is No 2 in both photos. It is the nudge I needed to write Annie’s Day.

And no, research is never tedious.